Recalled to Life: a Charmed Legacy
by thatcraftykid
Summary: Prudence Melinda is the last pure Halliwell witch. From beyond the grave, Cole is the Architect. He trains and manipulates her from childhood for the sake of a future that promises redemption but demands sacrifices made in blood...Cole/Mel
1. That Profound Secret 1

_Author's Note: Piper's daughter is Prudence Melinda Halliwell, as per the consensus, but Phoebe's "Ladybug" is the reincarnation of Melinda Warren. Had Phoebe's Penny been born first, she probably would've been named for her past life, but in my timeline each sister has her three children consecutively. _

_As for the other names, Phoebe seemed the most likely to continue the "P" tradition, and I like the idea that Paige would name her girls after her two beloved mothers, the latter I made up. "Juni" is a derivative of "Junior," which is a bit more playground-safe than "Little Henry." _

_Also, a note on last names – It makes sense that "Ask Phoebe's" husband would need a fake identity, ala the beginning of season eight, and "ReCupido" means "King of Hearts." "Coop" could then become a surname-derived nickname (e.g. "John ReCupido," after John Donne the love poet). As for the hyphens, we know that Phoebe's in favor of them, while "Matthews-Mitchell" sounds way too much like a law firm for Paige's tastes._

"_Wyatt" – Wyatt Matthew Halliwell – 2 February 2003_

"_Chris" – Christopher Perry Halliwell – 16 May 2004_

"_Mel" – Prudence Melinda Halliwell –10 April 2007_

"_Penny" – Penelope Amora Halliwell-ReCupido –1 May 2007_

"_Pheona" – Pheona Venus Halliwell-ReCupido –14 February 2008_

"_Pierce" – Pierce Billie Halliwell-ReCupido –23 August 2012_

"_Tricia" – Patricia Winona Mitchell – 4 September 2012_

"_Tia" – Portia Christine Mitchell – 4 September 2012_

"_Juni" – Henry Thomas Mitchell, Jr. – 12 October 2014_

**Recalled to Life**

**That Profound Secret**

**2016**

"A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!"

Book I; Chapter III of _A Tale of Two Cities _by Charles Dickens

—Not Entirely Her Own—

The sudden heaviness of Mel's limbs, the heightened awareness of her senses, the low murmur in her mind, the powerful hum from her fingertips to her temples alerted her – he was there.

She allowed him the use of her eyes to scan the backyard. Red, white, and blue streamers, ribbons, table liners; crayons, coloring books, her three four year-old cousins; flowers in bloom, green grass, bright sunlight; her two uncles, two aunts, mom and dad sitting on patio furniture arranged close by in the shade of the big tree. Chins titled upward, they took turns speculating over a small cluster of orbs floating above their heads.

"He's been up there a long time. Think he got stuck?" Mel's mom pondered evenly.

Her dad grinned. "Remember Chris and the ceiling? He'd need a solid surface."

"I'm impressed. I mean, kid's got stamina, commitment. All in all, good tantrum," Uncle Coop mused.

Aunt Phoebe let out a burst of laughter. For him, Mel briefly closed her eyes against it.

"Let us not forget style and execution. Very important."

"He's creative, too," Uncle Henry said. "He didn't pick this one up from his sisters."

Dad asked, "Where do you think he'll go?"

"He never goes anywhere. He just hovers." Aunt Paige pointed a stern finger up at her incorporeal son. "Henry Thomas Mitchell, Jr., you come down here right now." She added a snap and the orbs dropped straight down, just out of her grasp, and shot over to materialize on his father's lap.

Uncle Henry bounced his chortling son. "My boy's proud of himself. Aren't you, Juni? Yeah you are."

Aunt Paige sighed. "I can't tell if I'm raising a baby or a cloud. I'd never do it, but sometimes I just want to bind the sucker and have done."

"He'll calm down when it matters," Mom predicted. "The Mrs. Bemba incident did it for Melinda."

Aunt Paige snorted. "I'd rather Juni stop using his powers in public before I have to resort to drugging his teachers with memory-altering apples."

One time she'd gotten caught. One time. If that stupid kickball hadn't gone through the window, her teacher never would've unfroze to find Mel suddenly and inexplicably on the other side of the room, partway through a game of _Oregon Trail 3D_, while the other kids were still on test question number one.

"It wasn't really Mel's fault. She was bored in class." Good old Dad. "Bluffing her with a binding potion might have worked in the short run, but I really think giving her those extra Magic School classes to think about solved the problem long-term..."

Mel stopped listening, her attention caught by the tiny finger poking her in the shoulder.

"You used purple last," Tricia stated, pointing to the picture Mel had been idly coloring as collaborating evidence.

She spotted indigo in Tia's pile. "Here."

"No, purple." A bit of gold light, and Tricia's hazel eyes were the exact shade she wanted. "Where'd it go?"

"I don't know. I put it back in the box."

"Not true," Pierce said without glancing up. "It fell. You got your foot on it."

"I'll get it!" Tia dove under the table and quickly produced two halves of the missing crayon. On the table, she pushed the two ends together and then waved her palm over the stubs, fusing them together messily. "All better."

He had her ask Pierce, "How did you know where the crayon was?"

Still not glancing up, she replied, "I knew."

A veripath, he noted. A mender, an illusionist. So many useful opportunities.

She frowned deeply as he focused again on Aunt Phoebe. Was he only there to spy?

"…doing some serious thinking about binding," Aunt Phoebe was confessing. "After watching Billie agonize over her decision to strip her powers and start her life over in Texas with Greg, I can't help but wonder if any of my girls will ever reach the point when they're that totally disenchanted with magic."

Uncle Coop picked up Aunt Phoebe's hand from the armrest and held it. She placed her other hand over his.

Mel darted her eyes away. After a second, he had her look back. He wanted to watch them.

"Are you worried about this now or for the future?" Mom wanted to know.

"The future. Penny's got a great head on her shoulders and Pierce is still so young…It's mainly Pheona I worry about. She's already starting to show signs of being an empath. I know she should be fine, since the power is natural, but can you imagine how hard it's going to be for her when she's a teenager?"

Dad rested his elbows on his knees. "It doesn't have to be. Binding isn't the only option. There are calming spells and chants, and I'd be happy to give Pheona some extra time at School."

"You're wonderful, Leo. Really." Aunt Phoebe blew out a breath, smiling again. "And I guess for my part I'll just have to get used to my six year-old telling her babysitter just how much Mommy's been looking forward to her special night out with Daddy. And why."

The adults winced and laughed. He bared Mel's teeth sourly.

Aunt Phoebe shrugged prettily. "That's Pheona for you."

"Oh, tell them what Penn said," Uncle Coop prompted.

"I forgot. So, we're at that Wicca shop, the new one in Chinatown, and the owner – Bian-Xing, she's great – is lighting candles for the girls, showing them tarot cards. And the she asks the girls if they can do any magic. Penny popped right back with, 'Of course we can. We're Halliwell witches. We've all got strong wills, great cheekbones, and the best powers.'"

"She didn't," Mom exclaimed, leaning toward Aunt Phoebe.

"Not a direct quote, but pretty close."

Uncle Henry looked to his wife, but Aunt Paige could only give him a shrug.

"It's something Melinda Warren told us years ago when we brought her from Salem," Mom explained.

Uncle Coop added, "I told Phoebe that it isn't uncommon for people to experience déjà vu with their past lives, much like they can experience déjà vu with past loves."

"Uh-huh," Mom remarked, sharing a wry smile with Dad.

Sitting out there all afternoon, Mel had gotten used to being bored, but there was no way she was going to stick around and listen to how amazingly special having a past life made Penny. She tossed down the indigo crayon and started to get up.

Earnestly, Tia said, "Finish your picture or you waste paper. That's bad for Earth."

Mel ignored her cousin, refusing to let someone half her age boss her around. He, on the other hand, could boss her around, so she ended up standing next to Aunt Phoebe's chair instead of heading up to the attic as she'd intended. She wished he'd skip this part. It always made him so sad.

Aunt Phoebe squeezed Uncle Coop's hand before she let it go. "We've known who she was since the day of her Wiccaning. I've had nine years to wrap my head around it, but I'm still kind of at a loss. Ladybug seems so much of this time."

"So much like you," Mom said, a little wistfully.

"Yep, she's a talker all right. But it's the quiet ones you've really got to watch out for," Aunt Phoebe goofed, pulling Mel onto her lap.

She tried to squirm away from Aunt Phoebe's tickling fingers, huffing out giggles in spite of his heavy weight on her heart. When she stopped tickling, Mel squinted up at her face, all laugh lines and bright white teeth. Mel couldn't appreciate the delicacy of her Aunt Phoebe's bone structure or the fullness of her lips the way he wanted to, and that added to his sadness. She could, however, feel the warmth of her skin, the unmitigated affection in her eyes. He had to make do with that.

"Think we should put the steaks on?" Uncle Henry glanced at his watch. "Darryl and company are late." He made "tsk, tsk" noises at his recently retransferred captain.

"They probably got held up at Shelia's mother's," Dad replied. "What time did we say we were heading to the fireworks?"

"I told Shelia about five. The park'll get filled up fast – Ugh!" Mom swatted around her head. "The bees are huge this summer." With a flip of her wrist, Mom froze a bumblebee hovering near Aunt Paige.

Aunt Paige wrinkled her nose. "Yuck."

"Where'd the flyswatter go?" Uncle Henry wanted to know, looking around.

Aunt Paige didn't spot it either. "We'll have to smoosh it with a napkin or something. Just don't blow it up, Piper. I don't want bee guts all over me."

Look, Mel thought to him as she flicked her fingers at the bee. After a few seconds, it fell from the air and landed dead in the grass. Mel felt his approval. She'd been practicing freezing only parts of things, like he'd said. A little smile flittered across her face, one she immediately lost when Aunt Phoebe let out a tiny gasp.

"Prudence Melinda, what did you do?"

After a long pause, she responded, "I unfroze everything but his heart." She was confused by her aunt's stunned disappointment. The other adults had the same look. "What?"

"Nothing, sweetie. It's fine," Mom responded, glancing back at Dad.

Steadily, Mel's pulse began to pick up. "It can't be different from smooshing him or blowing him up," she pointed out, some of his bitterness creeping into her tone. "He didn't feel it, Aunt Phoebe. Why's it different? Why's it wrong?"

Aunt Phoebe smoothed back Mel's long brown bangs. "It wasn't wrong, Melinda. You didn't do anything wrong. You just did it so off-hand – I just – You really shouldn't be thinking about how to use your powers to kill things."

"But – demons – "

"Bees aren't demons. Bees sting, but they do good things, too, like pollinate flowers and make honey. Demons can't ever do good things. Do you understand?"

Mel kept her mouth closed. He opened it. "You still believe that?"

Aunt Phoebe's eyebrows knitted together. "How do you mean?" When she didn't get a response, Aunt Phoebe kissed Mel on the forehead. It felt sticky because it was so hot out. "Never mind. It's complicated. I just want you to be aware, okay?"

Enough of this, he should know better by now. Mel climbed off Aunt Phoebe's lap.

Her mom caught her by the wrist as she went by. "Hey, not so fast."

Very evenly, Mel said, "I have to go to the bathroom."

They stared at each other for a moment before Mom let go. "All right, sweetie."

Mel smiled. No lecture. "Thanks."

"Scram."

She went quickly across the yard. After Mel had closed the door behind her, she intuitively altered her façade to reflect his shift in focus to the task at hand. Her face became a still mask: wide-eyed gaze narrowed, open lips compressed. Shoulders squared, she strode through the sun porch, parlor, and foyer.

Never did Mel feel more alive than when her life was not entirely her own.


	2. That Profound Secret 2

**Recalled to Life**

**That Profound Secret**

**2016**

"A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!"

Book I; Chapter III of _A Tale of Two Cities _by Charles Dickens

—Weightless Gray Oblivion—

Mel heard the quick, heavy footsteps from the floor above as she started to climb the stairs to the landing. She paused in anticipation of Penny running past her, Chris four steps behind. But before Penny reached the landing, she grinned and hearted out.

"Bet she's in the basement," Chris speculated, not missing a beat. He vaulted himself over the stairs' wooden railing, and then broke himself up into a cloud of orbs to continue his descent through the floorboards below.

One hand on the rail, Mel started up the stairs again. She wished she could use his instant-zap teleportation power, but they couldn't risk anybody seeing.

"Are you ready to play now?"

From the top of the stairs, Mel turned back toward the landing where Penny had reappeared.

"Not yet."

"Please? It's more fun when you're on my tea – eek!" Penny let out a squeal. A white-blue light had appeared next to her. She clamored up the stairs, but Chris was too quick. He swiped the back of Penny's leg with his hand.

"You're it," he declared, orbing out just as quickly as he came.

"Nuts," Penny exclaimed, slapping the step above her. Straightening, she held out her hand to Mel. "Come on, let's get Pheona or Wyatt."

Penny's insistence was beginning to try his patience.

"Maybe later."

"That's what you always say," Penny reminded her with a disappointed shrug before hearting out.

Mel quickened her pace down the second-floor hall and up the attic stairs. The door was already open. "Anybody hiding in here?" she called out, looking around. Empty. Mel picked up a wooden footstool as she crossed the attic to the Book of Shadows. Perched on it, she relaxed so that he could use her hands to flip to the right page.

Infinitus. He'd revisited this entry so many times they both had it memorized. Regardless, she felt herself verbalizing his thoughts. "'The demon Infinitus possess the ability to create and manipulate any number of time loops, parallel planes, alternate realities, and even entire new dimensions.'…'An upper-level demon, he was known to be a powerful ally of the Source.'…Had a run-in with a Halliwell matriarch, and she discovered that 'only his body can be vanquished. Out of his own power, he is reborn but with no memory of any previous life. While he is in the in-between, another spell can be used to reverse whatever damage he has wrought.'…The two spells…and that is all she wrote. All I'm going to get, but still not enough."

His apprehension curdled in her stomach. The Book's drawing of Infinitus snarled up at her. His teeth were thick gray fangs, like granite arrowheads. The drawing depicted his eyes as vertical slits, pure silver in color, but did nothing to convey the Machiavellian intellect behind them. If this wasn't timed perfectly, if the spell didn't sufficiently weaken him, if it destroyed his body too quickly, if his powers could not be permanently contained –

Mel couldn't help starting, even though it was her own hands that slammed the Book shut so abruptly. Briefly, a sensation of weightless gray oblivion overtook her, and, when it was gone, she found she had materialized into what he called the Void. This was easy to tell because, while she was still seemingly in the attic, he was now standing directly in front of her, head bowed.

There was only a split second between when she felt him leave her and when she saw him lift his chin.

His eyes were a chilled blue that expressed none of the anxiety he had left in her. He turned away, loosening his neck and shoulders. The expression he wore hadn't softened when he turned back to say, "This can't wait. It's come down to my life or his. Can I count on you?"

Emphatically, she nodded. She wouldn't let herself be too afraid to help him, not ever.

There was forgiveness and reassurance in the answering smile he gave. "That's my girl Friday. Come on. I promise I'll make this quick as possible."

Pressing her fingernails into her quavering palms, Mel concentrated on his eyes. Her chin drooped, and, the next thing she knew, she was looking down at her own drooped head.

She knew then that she was small, that her powers were trivial compared with his or Infinitus's, yet the realization didn't affect her in the least. She was unable to feel fear in his body; only a shadow of remembered emotion tempered the cursed numbness inside of him.

"He'll just shrug off a freeze, so I won't even try. Wait until I give you control, say the spell, then let go. I'll finish it." With that, he buttoned his suit jacket.

The attic disappeared in a haze of gray. They rematerialized in a white pillared garden surrounded by picturesque mountains and lit by an arrested sunset.

"Welcome." Infinitus's adopted accent was guttural, almost German. "Cole Turner, what a pleasure."

Mel found it odd when they addressed him by name. She didn't think he needed one. He simply was.

She felt his lips turn up in a calculated smirk. "You sound like you were expecting me," he said, rotating to face Infinitus.

The demon was lounging in a rectangular hot spring bath. In his hand was a glass of wine the same dark burgundy as his skin. There was a pale blonde woman with him in the water. She was massaging his shoulders, her eyes cast downward. Her pheromone release was increasing by the second, as if she was suddenly too panicky to control it.

"The element of surprise is yours. I was merely being hospitable. I am particularly proud of this creation of mine, and I so rarely get to show it off. I am supposed to be untraceable here, after all. However could you have found me?" Infinitus twisted his neck to nuzzle at the blonde's throat with his thick, sharp teeth.

"Cole," she whimpered.

Infinitus lifted his head. "I marvel at your ability to inspire loyalty in demonic whores. They are such fickle creatures."

"I seem to have the right touch," Cole replied off-handedly, coming to crouch at the side of the bath. Steam billowed in his face and should have burned, but the sensation was numbed to a vaguely warm mist.

"She should have known you would not protect her."

The blonde screamed. Infinitus sunk his teeth into her throat, ripping it out with a tug. She wasn't quite dead as she watched him chew on her flesh. He swallowed, and the life left her eyes. Her skull made a dull thud when it hit the bath's stone edge. Mel observed the horrific scene with Cole's detachment. She might be sick about it later, when she was back in her own body.

The stench of sulfur mixed with the steam. Infinitus grinned, his mouth smeared with the blonde's neon green blood. "I would like to know what power you think you can use against me, Turner. You must believe it is worth the risk, or else you would be sweating."

"Were I capable of it."

The hot spring bath vanished, as did the body. Infinitus stood on solid marble flooring, clean and dry and dressed all in black.

Infinitus narrowed his vertical eyelids. "Who told you I was going to kill you? Was it Orin? Taelos, perhaps? No? Elivetris, then. I thought she had ceased concerning herself with your affairs half a century ago. My mistake. You understand, of course, why I have to kill you. You cannot be trusted."

"Really, Infinitus. When has trust ever been a part of demonic alliances? Power and threat. That's what counts."

"You betrayed the Source."

He unwound from his crouch. "I was the Source," he snapped, composed as ever.

"And what are you now? You think that by gaining influence in all those circles, you have made yourself the architect? I am the demon Cuius Aureus has summoned. I rule the fold that you created. How is this for power and threat: I am going to kill you, and no one will even mind."

His deep chuckle vibrated through her. "Ominous, nicely stated. Myself, I prefer to show, not tell." An image of a double-edged blade flashed through his mind just before it appeared in his hand. He curled his fingers around its short black handle.

"An athame, Turner? Your old tricks will not work on me."

"Do you remember a witch by the name of Astrid, by any chance?"

"Drop the games. It is over."

"I'm just curious. A witch named Astrid."

"None come to mind."

"I was so counting on you saying that."

He relaxed, leaving Mel in control. Even if she had been able to experience real panic, there would have been very little now that she was in the moment. This was what she did for him. She'd chanted a dozen spells or more, the first as far back as she could remember, before she'd been able to read on her own, even.

Though her own power as a witch might be that of a child's, she was not the daughter of a Charmed One for nothing. The collective power of a whole pantheon of gifted matriarchs was hers to tap into. All she had to do was say the spell:

"_Spider weaving time and space_

_Be gone, leave here in disgrace,_

_And after resurrection_

_Wake with no recollection_."

Mel let go immediately. Quick as a thought, he had one of the asthma's blades buried in Infinitus's chest plate.

"Impossible!" Infinitus wheezed.

"Arrogance will never cease to fell the high and mighty."

Infinitus unleashed his fury on his own paradise. The ground beneath them quaked, toppling pillars. The sky was blanketed in lightening-emitting clouds. Livid despair burned out of his silver eyes as the spell forced him to his knees.

He twisted the athame further into Infinitus's heart, chanting:

"_Capio quis est vestri_."

Infinitus tossed back his head in agony. Simultaneously, the spell worked to raze his physical form from the inside out, while the athame extracted his power. Infinitus burst into flames around the blade, leaving no trace.

Smoke lifted from his hand. The athame's handle was red hot but didn't burn. He brought the second blade up to his heart and plunged it in without a wince.

"_Recipero vox_."

Infinitus's power spread from his heart through his bloodstream, thick and slow as molten rock. Once he slid out the athame, the incision knitted itself together instantly, leaving only a dull ache. They waited. Muscles all over his body spasmed involuntarily, but held against the strain. The power settled inside its new master.

With an experimental wave of his arm, the hot springs bath, upright pillars, and arrested sunset reappeared. He clapped his hands together and laughed. Mel wanted to laugh with him, but there was no real happiness inside of him to latch onto.

"I think I'll keep this place for myself." A full wine glass appeared in his hand in place of the athame. "A toast," he called out to no one in particular. "To Infinitus, wherever he may be."

He tossed back the wine. His pallet registered no flavor. Had he really expected it to? He swallowed anyway, shattering the empty glass on the marble floor when he was finished.

Hollowly, he murmured, "'No profit grows where is no pleasure taken.'"

The oranges and pinks and yellows of this new world of his thinned and bled down from the sky and trickled into each other like oversaturated watercolors.

Mel wanted back in her own body. The numbness inside of him gnawed at her consciousness. It did not want mere suffering. It wanted flatness, grayness. Lifelessness. She hadn't enough will to resist it for too long. Sometimes, neither did he.

"I promised you quick as possible," he remembered suddenly, probably in response to the stirring of Mel's thoughts. A flash of gray and they were in the Void. "There," he said. "Go back."

She hesitated.

"I'll follow."


	3. That Profound Secret 3

**Recalled to Life**

**That Profound Secret**

**2016**

"A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!"

Book I; Chapter III of _A Tale of Two Cities _by Charles Dickens

—A Cursed-Blessed Family—

Once Mel could feel her heart again, it ached for her friend. She tried to suppress the feeling. Her pity made him irritable, and she wished him only good feelings.

"We could play with your new powers now," she suggested, because she thought he would make it her reward. His shape-shifting power had been her favorite; shape-shifting a whole other world would be even more fun.

His response to the negative came as he placed her back into the regular, boring attic. He never let her use his powers in the Manor. Her disappointment turned to curiosity when she realized he had something else for her, a present. Mel tried to probe his thoughts further to see what it was, but he chided her. No peeking.

Flip-flops smacking on wood panels, Mel gracelessly bounded her way through the upstairs. She bit back her full-on grin when she saw her brothers, Penny, and Pheona standing in a semi-circle in the foyer. Collectively, they stared down at the remains of Mom's crystal bowl. Mom's expensive crystal bowl.

Penny warned, "Careful, Mel. Don't cut your feet."

"What happened?" she inquired, though she could guess.

"Chris did it," Wyatt said quickly.

"Only because of you."

"It was an accident," Pheona mediated.

"Exactly. I'll just orb it away."

"And what happens when Mom notices it missing? We tell her a warlock stole it?" Chris snorted.

Impatient because she couldn't just orb or heart or zap or levitate herself over the mess, Mel asked shortly, "Could you do something about this, please?"

"What's your hurry?" Chris narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Where've you been, anyway? Dad was looking for you, and you weren't in your room."

Mel tensed and let him answer vaguely for her, "I don't know. I might've been in the bathroom."

Chris's eyes narrowed further, but he left it at that. Though she couldn't say for sure, sometimes she got the feeling that he knew more than he let on. This alarmed her. She didn't want him, or anybody else for that matter, to find out her secret.

Cole was hers.

He didn't respond too positively to that thought. Her possessiveness bothered him.

"Maybe we can get Tia to melt it or whatever she does," Penny suggested.

Chris shook his head. "It wouldn't look the same."

"Melting it is a good idea though, Penn," Wyatt told her.

Penny gave him a wide, adoring smile. "Really?"

"Sure," Wyatt said, spreading out his hand over the mess.

"That'll never work." Chris folded his arms over his chest.

Wyatt wiggled his fingertips. The shards melted into a clear gelatin ball that he telekinetically bounced into his upturned palm, where it instantly reformed into Mom's crystal bowl. He rapped on it with his knuckles. "Good as new."

"Yes," Pheona rejoiced, tugging on Wyatt's red t-shirt.

Penny applauded him. "That was amazing, Wyatt."

Wyatt rocked onto his toes to show off the effects of his inch-a-week summer growth spurt. "I believe ye stand corrected, oh little brother of no faith."

Chris sent Mel a sarcastic look that clearly said, "All hail Golden Boy."

In full agreement, Mel rolled her eyes grandly.

He was certainly impressed by Wyatt and the range of his powers. She could feel his interest. That made her sad and mad and even a little afraid. What if he never came back? What if he stopped wanting her help and asked for Wyatt's instead?

Don't be like that, Friday, he thought to her. You're my go-to-girl. Let's get you that present.

Smiling again, she let him walk her out the front door.

"Where're you going?" Chris wanted to know.

"To sit on the porch."

"You want company?" Penny offered.

"Nah. You keep playing."

"I'll come get you when the food's done," Wyatt told her.

She nodded her thanks, beginning to shut the door.

Just before it was closed, she heard Pheona say, "I think there's something wrong with Mel."

Chris retorted, "There're a lot of things wrong with Mel."

"Shut it, Chris," Wyatt snapped.

Letting out a long sigh, Mel plopped herself on the edge of the porch. No sooner had she propped her elbows on her knees than a brown kitten emerged from the bushes to sit directly in front of her. It stared out at her from eyes that weren't quite a pair – one was a chilled blue and the other a honeyed brown. She wanted to call the kitten to her, but she didn't know its name.

After a long moment he supplied, His name is Carton. Mel wrinkled her nose, and he laughed. All right, Sydney.

"Come here, Sydney," she called softly.

Sydney stretched lazily before complying. He purred deeply as she petted him. His fur was thick and soft. She wondered briefly if Sydney was made of magic. Then she remembered the pieces of hair he'd had her snip off the second-to-last time he'd been there and half-remembered a potion that called for his hair, too. Sydney was definitely magic. And he was all hers.

Mel cuddled Sydney's warm body to her chest. Thank you, thank you, thank you, she thought to him.

You deserve it, Friday, he answered curtly.

Of all her emotions, it was her love that made him the most uncomfortable. She felt him slip away.

I'll be seeing you.

His sudden absence was painful, as always. But at least she had Sydney to hold onto this time.

The front door opened behind her. She turned around, her smile huge. "Dad, look."

"Wow, she's pretty. Where'd you find her?" he inquired, crouching beside Mel and scratching the kitten behind his ears.

"He's a boy, Dad. He came right up to me. I named him Sydney. Can I keep him?"

Hesitating, Dad leaned back and stretched out his legs so he could sit. "I don't know, sweetheart. He could belong to someone else. We'll have to make some phone calls, maybe put up flyers."

The suggestion didn't bother her. No one else could claim him. Mel rubbed her cheek against Sydney's side. "If he doesn't belong to anyone else, then can I keep him?" She looked up her dad, eyes pleading.

"We'll see," he said, meaning yes. "C'mere." He lifted his arm so that she could scoot closer. "Melly, would you talk to me for a minute?"

"Is this about the bee?"

"Not just about the bee. Are you scared, sweetheart? Is that why you're always up in the attic reading the Book and practicing your power?"

Mel dropped her nose into her dad's flannel shirt. She didn't want to lie, so she shrugged.

"I asked you to talk to me."

She couldn't come up with anything better than another shrug.

"Mel. Talk. It's okay to be scared."

"I'm not scared." She pulled away. "Just because I don't have as many powers as everybody else, that doesn't mean I'm scared."

"You're jealous?" It wasn't really a question.

Mel focused her attention on Sydney. This was why she didn't talk. She gave away too much.

"I'm jealous sometimes, too."

"Because you're not an Elder or a whitelighter anymore?"

"That's right."

"And because Mom makes you take us to Magic School whenever something bad happens?"

"You don't miss much." He looked down at his hands, big and calloused from constantly rebuilding the grandfather clock and all the other furniture in the house.

"Do you really want to know what I think, Dad?"

"Always, sweetheart."

"I think being normal is the worst thing the whole world."

He laughed loudly. "Mel, you are your mother's daughter. The direct opposite, and exactly the same."

"Huh?"

He laughed again and gave Sydney another scratch. "Never mind." He drew Mel back against his side and kissed the top of her head. "You're your father's daughter, too, kiddo. We're in this one together."

Mel felt a great swelling of love. "You know, Dad, even though you're a mortal and I'm just a regular witch, I think we're the bravest out of all of them."

"You think so?"

She nodded.

Dad seemed sad all of a sudden. "Promise me something, okay? Don't go looking to prove it. Don't put yourself in harm's way. I know we won't be able to keep you from ever having to face a demon, but don't get mad when we try. We love you."

"What if I have to fight?"

"Then know that you're never alone. Halliwells take care of their own. I've had more than a few close calls since I married Mom, but I've always made it out the other side. I'm part of the family magic."

"We're a cursed-blessed family." She looked up at her dad, who was giving her a curious but fond look.

"Sometimes I forget you're only nine."

From the door, Wyatt announced, "Dinner's ready – Is that a cat?"

"His name's Sydney," Mel told him, cradling her kitten as she stood. She let Wyatt pet him as they went through the house. "Dad said I could keep him."

Mom, who was carrying two trays of deviled eggs from the kitchen, took exception to that. "Did he?"

Dad scratched the back of neck. "Yeah, well. Only if no one else claims him. And only after we've discussed it. Together." He flashed her a sheepish smile. Mom returned the smile in spite of herself. She always did.

Wyatt leaned in. "You know, he kind of looks like you, Mel. From the one side, anyway."

Chris shifted a bowl of pasta salad to the crook of his elbow and narrowed his eyes at Sydney. "The blue-eyed side, I don't know. It looks magical. We should probably make sure it's not evil."

"You're evil," Mel shot back, pulling Sydney away protectively.

"Hey, hey, hey," Mom broke in. "No one in this house is evil. At least not currently."

"I'm just saying better safe than sorry. The kitty could be evil," Chris reasoned.

Sydney hissed at Chris.

"See? Evil."

"Not evil. He just has good taste."

Mom held her trays higher. "Not that this little interlude hasn't been fun, but we have guests. Let's move this food outside. Hop to it."

"The family isn't guests," Chris complained.

"Let me hold the cat," Wyatt said, beckoning the cat to come to him. Animals usually did. Sydney, however, just yawned and licked Mel's nose. Disappointed, Wyatt took a tray from Mom instead. Mom gave Dad instructions to go help Uncle Henry at the grill.

Leaning in, Chris murmured to Mel, "Evil or not, what you said about the kitty having taste? Maybe you were on to something."

Mel snickered. Sydney reached out a paw toward Chris. She reluctantly exchanged him for the pasta salad.

Chris held Sydney up, inspecting him. "He's definitely magical. Someday, Mel, I'm gonna figure out where you found him. And then I'm gonna figure out where you've been disappearing to."

"What are you talking about?" Her heart rate was accelerating alarmingly.

He shrugged. "Maybe nothing. Maybe something huge. We'll see. I'll just have to keep an eye on this kitty from now on. He knows."

"You're dumb, Christopher."

"You're weird, Melinda."

"Not that I'm doing anything, but why are you trying so hard to get me in trouble?"

"The family has to come first. I've learned that lesson better than anybody. Look, like it or not, I'm your big brother and your whitelighter. It's my job to keep your priorities in line."

"Your job? Hello – Aunt Paige. Besides, who died and made you Golden Boy?"

"I've got to watch out for him, too. Even more than you."

"Do you believe all that Twice-Blessed Child and Heir to Excalibur stuff? Our brother Wyatt is the only person standing between life as we know it and eternal darkness?"

"He's not going to be the only person standing there. We'll be there, too. But, yeah, he'll be the last and the strongest. I believe that."

"He's thirteen. Eternal darkness better wait a few years if it wants any kind of a fight."

"Things are already starting. Mom's not saying anything, but I can tell. It's going to get bad out there. Am I right, kitty?"

Sydney mewled.

Chris took it as agreement. "See? Kitty knows."

"Dumb," she repeated. Though, she had to give him credit. Chris understood good magic. He understood that loyalty was its basis.

She might've told Chris that his assumptions were correct; the thoughts she'd gleaned from Cole verified that. Had she even the slightest doubt as to whether any of the things she'd done for him were not carefully constructed to serve the eventual greater good, she wouldn't have been able to keep her secret so well.

But keep it she did, destining herself a place in the coming battle. Chris would stand beside Wyatt, Mel would stand beside Cole, and the four of them would be flanked by the rest of the Halliwell family. They would all be heroes. They would all prevail.

To one so young, destiny was an exciting, miraculous sort of thing, not at all subject to change or revision.

Had she had that thought while Cole had still been in her head, she would have realized how naïve her presumptions were.


	4. No Sadder Sight 1

**Recalled to Life**

**No Sadder Sight**

**2019**

"Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away."

Book II; Chapter V of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

—All the Utter Unfairness—

The quick, torrential thump-taps on the SUV's roof and the swoosh-squeak of the windshield wipers drowned out most of her parents' mild argument about what would be the fastest route home. Secluded in the very backseat, Mel rested her forehead on cool glass and watched the procession of headlights in the next lane.

Weighed down by dark circles, Mel's eyelids fluttered shut. Terrible images of flesh and steel and blood skittered through her mind, forcing a hitch into her breathing. She bit her ragged nails into her palm and clenched her fist until her whole hand throbbed.

The dull pain was somewhat like his, but it did not comfort Mel. Her stomach continued to tilt forward and back in response to the revulsion and fury she couldn't suppress the way only he could. Stretching open her fist, she slammed her palm into the headrest of the seat in front of her.

"Prudence Melinda," her mom admonished sharply, fixing her a look from the passenger seat. "It's only a game."

Soothingly, her dad added, "There're plenty more left in the season, kiddo. You'll show 'em."

She nearly laughed out loud. A junior high basketball game. Her parents thought she was this upset over losing a junior high basketball game.

Sometimes she forgot how young everyone thought she was.

Fleetingly, Mel wanted nothing more than to tell them that last night she'd seen a place where people – actual human people – gladly paid membership dues with pieces of their own souls; a place where these actual human people brought in other actual human people – their bosses, perfect strangers, children – and tortured them in every imaginable way for as long and as often as they wanted; a place where consequences didn't exist, because the victims left as physically unblemished as they came in and retained no memory of any suffering they endured.

She wanted, too, to tell them that last night she'd considered vanquishing not only the demons there – something she'd gladly helped Cole do – but also vanquishing those actual poor excuses for human people right along with them. Very nearly, she had. She'd felt that he might have allowed it.

Only knowing what her parents would have said had stopped her. To kill a demon was to vanquish him. To kill a human was to murder him. One served the greater good; the other strengthened the forces of evil. Black and white. No gray.

Mel turned back to her window, keeping herself very still for the remainder of the ride home. When her dad pulled into the driveway, she zipped her coat over her jersey, put her duffle bag over her shoulder, and prepared to make a break for it.

"Just a second," Mom said, taking out her umbrella.

Biting the inside of her cheek, Mel waited for her mom to get out of the passenger side before climbing out of the SUV. Mom wrapped her arm around Mel's waist, hoisting the umbrella high so they could both fit under it. Mel had overtaken her mom in height by a few inches already, and she was still growing.

Mom had to raise her voice so Mel could hear her over the rain. "Sorry about that competitive edge, sweetie. That would be my fault. Halliwells can't stand to lose."

That was a true statement if she'd ever heard one. Mel shared a wry smile with her mom as they hustled up the path to the front porch, Dad in his poncho not far behind.

"Ugh, what a miserable night," Mom remarked, shaking out her umbrella while Dad got the door.

He motioned Mel through. She ducked under his arm, not quite fast enough to avoid a fond tug on her ponytail.

"Dad," she complained, batting his hand away with a tired grin.

Mel stopped in her tracks. The parlor couch, splintered in half, was jammed into the staircase landing. Sydney meowed from his perch on the rail.

Dad placed his hands on her shoulders in an attempt to urge her back. Heedless, she darted down the hall and skidded to a halt in front of the parlor. Mom and Dad were there a moment later.

The parlor was trashed. Every lamp was crushed, every chair overturned. From the floor, the shattered front of their flat-screen television was smoking.

Wyatt stood in the middle of the debris, an extremely guilty expression on his face. He laughed weakly. "Hey there. Uh, how was the game?"

Orbs flowed down from the ceiling. Chris rematerialized next to Wyatt, his hands up in a calming motion. "Okay, don't freak out."

Mom made a strangled, incredulous noise. Very deliberately she folded her arms over her chest, clearly teetering on the freaking out precipice. "Explain."

Chris began, "Well, there was a demon, obviously."

Massaging the bridge of her nose, Mom gritted out, "I told you last time – no proactive demon fighting until both of you have graduated high school. Two and half more years, guys. That's all I asked."

"But, Mom, we didn't lure this one in. It just showed up," Wyatt countered.

Dad frowned deeply. "No demon has made an initial attack at the Manor since Mel was a toddler."

"Yeah, we know that," Wyatt acknowledged. "But, seriously. He started it."

Mom cocked an eyebrow Chris's way.

"Lame as he sounds, he's telling the truth. We were just playing a VR game and, bam, it was there. If Penn hadn't gotten here – "

This was so not fair. Mel leaned against the wall heavily, letting her duffle bag hit the floor.

"You dragged Penelope into this? She's eleven," Mom yelped.

Penny must've been listening in from somewhere close, because she hearted in next to Chris. Meekly, she said, "It's not their fault, Aunt Piper. I had my first premonition."

"You did? Oh, Penny." Mom held her arms open, and Penny scurried over to receive the hug. "That's all three powers."

Joy, Mel thought sourly.

"Does your mom know?" Mom asked Penny.

"I didn't have time to tell her. I was just up in my room doing my homework, and an image of this demon attacking crashed into my head. I hearted right here."

Wyatt added, "And just in time, too. The demon came, what, thirty seconds later?"

Penny nodded excitedly. "He appeared right where we're standing, and I was so scared I flung out my arms, and the couch Wyatt and Chris were sitting on flew back at him. It knocked him all the way to the stairs. He got up super quick, though. He ran right at me so fast I could barely see him. I tried to freeze him, but I'm not so good at that. Luckily, Chris grabbed me and orbed us away."

Chris reached behind him to scratch the nape of his neck. "It was a close call."

Penny gave him one of her adoring grins. "Not that close. You still saved me. Anyway, next thing I knew, the whole house was shaking, because Wyatt sent out this energy blast right the demon."

Wyatt put in, "It was so sick. The demon, like, internally combusted into this thick, clear goo and then burst into flames. Never seen anything like it. You would've loved it, Mel."

She shrugged to hide her jealousy. "So, what'd he look like before he combusted?"

"Person-shaped," Penny answered, "But he looked like a lizard or a raptor or something – you know, scales, not skin. And he was white with black and yellow markings."

Mel racked her brain but couldn't come up with anything. "That's not in the Book," she announced, certain.

"You're right," Chris concurred. "We looked already."

Dad's expression was grim. "I think I know what kind of demon it was."

"What?" Mom asked, obviously wary of Dad's tone.

"A Poenas demon. They're deep underworld mercenaries. Pure predators. Demons hire them to take out other demons to gain the advantage in power struggles. They aren't interested in the battle between good and evil. I've never heard of one attacking a witch before. Someone must've paid a high price for this."

Chris clamped Wyatt on the back. "Gratifying to know you're an expensive hit, huh?"

"I'd be insulted if I wasn't," Wyatt replied, resting a hand on his chest.

Mom put up one finger. "No jokes until after this is settled. I want you to take this seriously. Both of you."

"Aw, but I totally already vanquished him, Mom. It was cake," Wyatt interjected.

Chris flashed Mel his patented "Golden Boy is the dumbest person alive" sneer.

"The demon who ordered the hit is still out there," Mel spelled out, adding, "Duh."

Wyatt shrugged off her sarcasm. "Guess I didn't think of that."

"All right. Let's get this taken care of. Penny, do me a favor. Go home and tell your mom what happened, and have Aunt Paige bring her back here."

"Will do," Penny said before hearting out.

"There're texts on Poenas demons at the School," Dad informed Mom.

"The more information we have, the better. Chris, go with your dad." Once they were gone, Mom took a moment to eye the wreck in which she was standing. "Wyatt, you put my parlor back in order or so help me..."

"Right-o," he saluted.

"I'm going to put on some coffee. I have a feeling this is going to be a very long night." Mom headed to the kitchen, brushing right by Mel.

She wanted to call out, "Hey, what about me?" but she didn't bother.

"So, what do you think, Mel?" Wyatt inquired rubbing his hands together. "I'm in a rhyming mood. Something about how being grounded just won't do, so the parlor needs to be like brand new?"

"Personal gain."

"You," he said in a praising tone. He tapped his right temple. "Always thinking. Okay, no personal gain…How about motherly gain?" After a few seconds, he cleared his throat triumphantly:

"A demon attacked, blah, blah, not my fault, that's the gist,

Let this damage be reversed so poor Mom won't be pissed."

Mel blinked against a split-second blinding glare. When she opened her eyes the parlor was completely back in order. The couch was in its rightful spot, the lamps were working, and the television was fixed. For a moment everything had a slight gleam, like furniture in those fifties commercials they showed on TVLand.

"Superb," Wyatt pronounced.

Geez. No way a spell that terrible would have worked for any other witch. Heaving a long sigh for all the utter unfairness in her life, Mel started up the stairs.

"Hey, wait. I'll play you," Wyatt proposed, holding up a glove controller.

"I have to shower." Mel paused on the landing to sling her duffle bag over her shoulder so she could gather Sydney in her arms. She continued her climb, throwing a, "Try not to get whacked," over her shoulder.

"I appreciate your concern," Wyatt called out affably.

Mel gritted her teeth, the only outward sign of the resentment she sometimes couldn't help feeling for the family she sometimes didn't think of as her own.


	5. No Sadder Sight 2

**Recalled to Life**

**No Sadder Sight**

**2019**

"Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away."

Book II; Chapter V of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

—Some Great Debt—

Exhausted as she was, Mel didn't go directly to sleep after her shower. She got into her pajamas and into bed, Sydney curled up next to her, but she stayed awake. Listening to the rain, she entertained herself by throwing up colored beads and freezing them in mid-air one by one until she eventually had a basketball floating above her. She was finishing filling in the orange when her dad poked his head in the door.

"It's nearly eleven, sweetheart. You should be asleep."

"I'm not tired," Mel lied, tossing up another bead. It didn't quite hit the mark, so she let it fall and tried again.

Dad came in to stand next to her bed, his fingers tucked in the pockets of his jeans. "You sure look tired. Have you been sleeping okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"I don't know, Mel. That's the problem. I look at you, and I can see you becoming more and more withdrawn, and I just can't figure out why." He waited for Mel to answer, but got no reply. "Can I have your attention, please?"

Mel lifted her eyes to her dad's. "I'm listening."

"Is it school? Penny told your mom that you don't exactly…" He trailed off, searching for the least hurtful way of phrasing it.

Bluntly, Mel supplied, "Have any friends." Why'd Penny have to go and butt her nose into Mel's business?

"Close friends," Dad clarified, taking a seat on her mattress. "You seem to get along well enough with the girls on your team. They like you, don't they?"

"I'm a good player."

"Do you like them?"

"They're okay."

"Well, you could invite one or two of them over some weekend."

"I could."

Dad made a frustrated noise. "I'm not on the right track here at all, am I?"

Mel dropped her gaze to Sydney, scratching him under the chin.

"I gather that's a no. Fine. If you won't talk, you're at least going to get some sleep. Tomorrow's Saturday, you have Magic School, remember? Put your beads away."

"Try to push them down."

"They'll go everywhere."

Mel positioned her plastic container under the beads. "Now try."

Standing, Dad rested the weight of his palm on the top of the floating basketball, then his whole upper torso when he realized it wasn't moving. He attempted to pluck a single bead from the whole, but it wouldn't budge until Mel waved her hand to unfreeze it.

"That's impressive," Dad said, placing the bead in the container.

"Thanks," she replied, smiling proudly. She waved her hand again and all the beads dropped. Some would've bounced out, but she froze them a second time so they landed more gently.

Dad took the container from her and set it on the floor by her bed. "Lay down."

Sydney growled in protest of being jostled out of place as Mel scooted herself further under the covers. "'Night, Dad."

"Goodnight, Melly-Belly," he replied, flipping off her lamp. Before shutting her door, he said, "Don't worry about Wyatt. Your mom and aunts are here to look after him."

Great. They'd be hanging around the kitchen for sure, which meant she couldn't sneak down there like she'd planned. Maybe she wouldn't bother this year. It wasn't like he'd ever acknowledged her little ritual anyway.

Mel closed her eyes resolutely.

Still, she found herself glancing at the digital clock on her nightstand every five minutes. At fifteen 'til midnight, Mel decided that whether he chose to acknowledge it or not, she couldn't just skip it.

Moving quietly through the darkened upstairs, Mel made her way to the dimly lit downstairs. Wyatt and Chris were crashed out on the couch and the recliner, respectively. She could hear the sound of low voices coming from behind the kitchen door. Certainly not for the first time, Mel wished that she could freeze family members.

She entered the kitchen rubbing her eyes and generally making a show of being sleepy.

From behind the refrigerator door, her mom asked, "Did you need something?"

"I wanted some milk," she answered, casually sidling toward the snack cupboard.

"I'll get it for you."

While Mom was busy pouring, Mel made a pleading motion for her Aunt Paige's benefit. She pointed to the snack cupboard, mouthing, "Cupcake."

Aunt Paige exchanged an amused smile with Aunt Phoebe. With a surreptitious wave of one hand, Aunt Paige orbed one of Wednesday's cupcakes from the container in the cupboard into Mel's palm. She quickly hid the pilfered item behind her back, hoping the crumbs wouldn't show. Aunt Paige and Aunt Phoebe innocently went back to enjoying their coffees.

Mom handed Mel a glass. "There you go, sweetie."

Mel took it with her free hand. "Thanks." She waited for Mom to turn around to start for the door.

Very sagely, Mom advised, "Be sure to brush your teeth again after you eat that."

"Aw, Piper, why'd you have to ruin the intrigue?" Aunt Paige bemoaned.

While they shared a laugh, Mel made her exit.

Once back in her room, she left the milk and cupcake on her nightstand and moved to her closet. She tugged down on the string to the overhead light. Buried deep inside a container of old toys and summer clothes was a Nike shoebox. Mel dumped out the contents beside her on the floor. An assortment of baseball and playing cards tumbled out, along with a photograph, a matchbook, and a small, thin candle.

The photograph was something she, Penny, and Pheona had found one day a few years ago while looking through Mel's mom's wedding album. Her stomach had done a startled flip when she'd seen him staring up at her from the photograph, one arm genially propped on her dad's shoulder and the other possessively curved around Aunt Phoebe's waist.

Penny and Pheona hadn't noticed him at first. They'd focused instantly on Aunt Prue. Only after agreeing on how beautiful she'd been did they wonder who the guy with their mother was. Mel had feigned equal ignorance and trailed them to the living room, where they'd held the photograph up to Aunt Phoebe.

Aunt Phoebe had taken it, the corners of her lips lifted in a sad little smile. Candidly, she'd explained, "Girls, this was my husband before I met your father."

Penny and Pheona had bent over the picture again. Neither of them seemed upset by this news, just curious.

"Who was he? What happened to him?" Penny had wanted to know.

"His name was Cole Turner. He was a half-demon. I thought I could save him, but I couldn't."

Mel had tried to observe the expressions on her mom and Aunt Paige's faces, but they'd both looked away. A flare of righteous anger had sparked in her at that. "Maybe you didn't try hard enough," Mel had bitten off, addressing the three of them as a whole. As the Charmed Ones.

Aunt Paige had taken her bottom lip between her teeth, gaze locked on the window. Mom had focused intently on Mel's face, probably wondering why she cared so much.

Aunt Phoebe's sad smile had gotten wispier. "At the time, it I felt like I'd been trying too hard for far too long."

"You loved him," Pheona had said very certainly.

Aunt Phoebe had pulled Pheona onto her lap. "I couldn't imagine my life with anyone other than your daddy, but I did love Cole. And, yes, sometimes I do think we could have done more for him." Looking over at Mom, she'd added, "Especially considering what he did for this family even after we had to…vanquish him."

Mel had secretly kept the photograph. It reminded her that, like Aunt Phoebe had implied, the Halliwell family owed Cole some great debt. She felt incredibly justified being the one – the only one – to pay it.

Putting the photograph and the cards back in the shoebox and the shoebox back in its hiding place, Mel turned off her closet light. Candle and matchbook in hand, she groped her way to her bed, following the sound of Sydney lapping up milk from the glass on the nightstand. Once in bed, she sunk the candle down into the cupcake's frosting.

She waited three minutes until it was precisely midnight, at which time she lit the wick. Sydney abandoned the milk in favor of watching the small flame flicker in the darkness. Minutes went by. Mel remained absolutely alone in her head. He wasn't going to come.

"Happy birthday, Cole," Mel murmured. Before she could blow out the candle, a sudden draft snuffed it into smoke.

Hairs on the back of her neck pricked, Mel bent over to hide the cupcake under her bed and slowly sat back up. Sydney's sudden hiss caused her blood to run cold, but her ears didn't pick up anything but the rain. After a few long heartbeats of silence, she convinced herself that shadows were playing tricks on her eyes.

Then Sydney let out a forceful yowl. Mel froze the room, unfroze Sydney, and dashed out of bed. Opening the door to the hallway, she flicked up her light switch.

A Poenas demon stood, immobile, not a foot from her bed.

Scarcely having time let out a startled yell, her only warning that another had appeared behind her was Sydney charging at her just before the demon grabbed her and pinned her elbows to her side. Penny had not exaggerated their speed. Faster than she could've hoped to react, she found herself dangling in front of the Poenas demon, who had her by the throat. The only thing keeping her from strangling was her grasp on his dry, scaly wrist.

The Poenas demon had no pupils. His eyes were a milk marble white. He should have looked blind, but his stare was so sharp it hurt. Vaguely, Mel heard the sounds of a door slamming open, tinkling orbs, and feet on the staircase, but she couldn't bring herself to look away. She couldn't even blink as the Poenas demon spit gelatinous goo full in her face.

A jagged scream ripped from her compressed throat. It was as if the nerve endings in her eyes had been coated in acid. She heard her name called out in panic-stricken voices, felt the weightlessness of teleportation, knew her kidnapping had been successful; she didn't care. The pain was all-consuming.


	6. No Sadder Sight 3

**Recalled to Life**

**No Sadder Sight**

**2019**

"Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away."

Book II; Chapter V of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

—Belthazar Is Dead—

"Shut the witch up," said a voice.

Abruptly, Mel fell heavily to her knees. A kick to the back of the head sent her forehead crashing into the cold flooring. She was hardly able to breathe, let alone scream. Her esophagus spasmed with dry heaves. The worst of it, though, was that she was physically unable to close her burning eyes. She could see perfectly, but she would have gladly traded her vision for relief.

"Payment," Mel heard the Poenas demon hiss gutturally.

"Mr. Orin is in his office," the other replied, a British accent now evident.

Tilting her head to the side, Mel saw that the Poenas demon was gone. She fixed one stingingly dry eye on the demon leaning casually against the black, glassy wall on the other side of the room, smoking a thin cigarette. He was person-shaped, as Penny would've said, with Roman features. He also was young and handsome, but Mel wasn't fooled.

He noticed her attention and sneered broadly. He waved down at her with one of his pinkies. "Hello, little Halliwell. Stand up, so I can get a look at you."

Mel turned her head back toward the floor. She couldn't have willed her legs or her arms to move even if she'd wanted. She heard the sound of a conjured energy ball.

"I told you to stand, witch."

His energy ball swooshed-crackled, and she assumed he'd thrown it. Impassively, she waited for it to hit her. A new kind of pain would be welcome.

It never reached her.

Looking out again, she choked on sudden hope. Standing with his back to her, intercepted energy ball in hand, was her savior. He side-armed the energy ball back at the demon, who took the full brunt of it. Unconscious, the demon slid partway down the wall, cigarette falling out of his mouth.

Cole turned around, crouching beside her. "Damn it, Friday," he murmured, placing a cool hand on Mel's back. She felt herself being cradled and lifted. Grayness, and then she was laid down on a mattress and pillow. He sat next to her on the edge of the bed.

Throat only letting out halting gasps, she mouthed, "My eyes."

"I know. I've had run-ins with Poenas demons myself." A glass of clear liquid appeared in his hand. "Water's the only thing for it, but it's going to hurt like hell. Are you ready?"

"Yes," she managed to rasp weakly.

Placing his palm securely on her forehead, he dumped the contents of the glass onto her face and quickly moved to press his other palm down on her sternum.

The effect was instantaneous. Mel screamed roughly as the gel across her eyes hardened and thickened, the blazing hot sting flaring up. Reacting animalisticly to the pain, she twisted violently under his hands and clawed at his face. She got in a few good swipes but didn't have the fingernails to draw blood.

"Lie still," Cole snapped, pressing down harder on her sternum. He let go of her forehead to catch her chin. Forcing eye contact, he said again, "Lie. Still."

Mel dropped her arms. She clenched the sheets between her fingers and her toes. Her body shook with suppressed convulsions. Her eyes she kept on his, even as her vision clouded over.

"I'm going to let go of you now. Keep steady."

Pinching the corner of her eye, he began to peel the gel from the side of her face. Her skin stretched and pulled with it, and Mel bit the insides of her cheeks to distract herself. She hissed in breath when she felt the tug on her eyelashes. Taking her eyelids between his fingers one at a time, he carefully worked the gel from her lashes. That accomplished, he peeled down.

Mel grabbed his wrists in her shaking hands. The gel had adhered to the membrane over her eyes. The slightest pull, and it felt like her eyes would pop out with it.

"Whenever you're ready."

Gathering up her courage, Mel let go. One jerk of his wrists and the gel ripped from her eyes. The movement was so sudden she didn't have time to yell. She let him push her eyelids blessedly closed. He lightly massaged them with the pads of his thumbs. Her tear ducts filled, flooding her achingly dry eyes with moisture. After a few long minutes, her breathing slowed. Her skin still felt raw and her eyes still burned under her closed lids, but the pain had lessened in intensity. When he lifted his thumbs, she opened her eyes, tears spilling out.

"Better?"

She nodded.

"Good," he said curtly, his voice conveying none of the gentleness that had been in his hands.

As her vision cleared, she took in his appearance. His expression was pinched, his face unshaven, and his eyes wildly bloodshot. He was still the best-looking man Mel would ever want to know. She wanted to reach up and wrap her arms around his neck, but she kept her hands flat against the mattress.

Sydney hopped up on the bed, surprising Mel. He rubbed his side against the back of Cole's hand briefly before walking onto Mel's stomach. She sought her comfort by hugging Sydney's soft brown body.

"Anywhere else in pain?" Cole asked. Though she wasn't looking at him, she could feel the appraisal in his eyes.

"I'm all right." She straightened herself on the bed. Her head throbbed in response to the new position. "Orin was behind this."

"You're certain?" His tone was doubtful, slightly mocking.

Jaw set, she replied as smoothly as she could, "Positive. The Poenas demon who kidnapped me left to get payment from him."

"Orin might be footing the bill, but are you certain he's the one who's found us out?"

"No," Mel relented, feeling for a moment like Wyatt. "I assumed."

Standing, he nodded dismissively. "Stay here," he ordered and stopped her words of protest with a loud, "Rest," and the hard slam of his bedroom door.

She stifled the urge to petulantly yell, "Grouch," at him. Laying back and closing one aching eye, she glared accusingly at Sydney. "How did you get here? I bet you can shimmer or something, can't you? Of course you can. You probably have more powers than I do," she huffed.

Sydney mewled, and tilted his head up and to the side. The feline equivalent of an eye-roll.

Mel sighed. Taking her frustration out on her cat was not the most useful thing she could be doing. As difficult as it was to do with this headache, she had to think. They'd been found out and she'd had to suffer for it. Fine. Now it was time for damage control. Two questions: Who was ultimately behind this and how could they take him out without jeopardizing –

A low murmur of voices from the other room had Mel instantly off the bed and cracking open the door. She was startled to see a petite, cloaked woman leaning across Cole's desk. From her vantage point, Mel could see him slouched in his chair, his fingers stapled together but no interest on his haggard face.

"However undeniably careless you have become," the woman hissed, "I do not believe for an instant that you did not expect swift reprisal for your attack last night. She could not have changed you that much."

Blasé, he replied, "I haven't changed in the least. Last night I acted in the same way I always do. That is, in my own self-interest."

"And I responded for the sake of my own. Belthazar, the witch must be gotten rid of."

Mel's eyebrows shot up.

Cole merely leaned back farther in his chair. "Belthazar is dead, mother." He closed his eyes, looking like he could easily take a nap.

The young woman, who Mel knew now as both Elizabeth Turner and Elivetris, icily returned, "As is Coleridge Turner. Vanquished, seventeen years ago today."

Musingly, Cole agreed, "Yes. Only to be recalled to life some five years later."

"This is no life," Elivetris sneered. "Look at you." From his desk, she picked up an empty vile. "Look at what you have been reduced to. Driven mad by numbness, addicted to methamphetamine potions and the prepubescent daughter of a Charmed One, the very witches responsible for your…state." With a flick of her wrist, the vile shattered against the wall behind Cole's head. He didn't even flinch. "I had to act. My only mistake was that I presumed tonight you would be indulging heavily," she spat, "and therefore unable to come your witch's rescue."

"You presumed correctly. I just happened to have started a little later than usual." Cole's eyes were still closed. Elbows cocked, he lifted his hands to the back of his head.

Mel wondered, as Elivetris must, how relaxed he was going to make himself appear before he struck. She didn't worry about the consequences of whatever he would do, because he would do what was best. She was not troubled at all by the suggestion that he was becoming careless or that he had a potion habit. Surely, this apparent weakness was part of his act. To Mel, Cole could do no wrong. Every questionable word out of his mouth was carefully crafted to keep up appearances and contained truth only when she herself agreed with it.

With what looked like great effort, Elivetris composed herself. "If you insist on keeping the witch alive, show me the prophecy. Only if I am certain she is necessary – "

Voice clipped, Cole responded, "My word should be more than enough to convince you of that. Don't forget, I have been setting these events in motion for fifteen years. I have every moment of every day planned to the very last detail, including time off for 'indulgence.' I am the architect of what will be our final resurgence. Someday, I will hold a position more powerful than even the Source, and your on again, off again faithfulness will be amply rewarded."

Elivetris stiffened. "Provided you can keep yourself from falling in love with another witch. She may be a child now, but how old will she be when our time finally comes? Twenty? How will you feel about her then?"

"You're thinking of her as if she were Phoebe. Melinda Halliwell is no paragon of good. She does what I tell her when I tell her to do it. Whatever womanly charms she undoubtedly will develop, given her gene pool, are of no consequence. The balance of power between us won't shift. She may be the daughter of a Charmed One, but she belongs to me. I own her."

A bone-deep shudder went through Mel at his words. They struck her as much too truthful. Did he really see her as his property with no reciprocation? He bossed her around a lot, of course, but when all was said and done they were partners. Right?

"Prove it," Elivetris all but purred.

"Excuse me?"

"I require evidence that she is neither good nor autonomous before I am willing to call off the Poenas demons I had Orin hire."

Cole's affected relaxation seemed to be abating. "What do you have in mind?"

"I assume from the way you targeted Orin's club last night that you feel his usefulness to the fold has expired?"

"Yes."

"I also assume from the way you vanquished only the demons present that you hesitate to kill humans, Orin included."

"And this was what made you think I'd gone soft? I assure you, I hesitated only because that many human deaths, no small portion of them influential figures on the surface, would lead to an innumerable amount of questions and, ultimately, the involvement of the Cleaners."

Elivetris weighed his explanation. "A valid concern. However, the death of one human would, surely, not arouse suspicion to magic."

A long, shrewd look passed between mother and son.

With a purposeful nod, Cole acquiesced. "Come here," he ordered.

His attention remained on Elivetris, but Mel knew he was addressing her. She came out of the shadow of the doorway, chin tucked slightly down, eyes cagy. The role she had to play was that of obedient servant, but she refused to appear cowed or unintelligent.

Elivetris surveyed Mel from head to toe and back again. Her eyes were same iced blue as Cole's, set wide on a face that was disconcertingly sweet, ageless. In a soft voice, almost kind, she asked, "You are here of your own freewill. Why?"

Mel had not been expecting such a direct question. She hesitated, hoping to feel Cole's mind touch hers with the answer. When none came, she found herself stuttering, "I – Because – I – " She swallowed. There was no fail-safe lie. Only the truth would be acceptable. "Because I love him."

Laugh like shattered glass, Elivetris turned back to Cole. "The little dear," she simpered. Prodding gaze back on Mel, she questioned, "Are you evil?"

This time she did feel a sharp nudge from Cole. "No," Mel all but yelped. "I – I mean, it's going to be good for everybody, after the resurgence. Some – sometimes it's us against them, and that's the way it has to be. Magic shouldn't have to hide."

"No it should not," Elivetris agreed. "And when the resurgence is complete, what will be your reward?"

"Power," Mel replied forcefully.

This time, Elivetris's laughter was slightly more appreciative than derisive. "Very well. We will do this now, I think. Take my hand, Melinda Halliwell."

Mel looked to Cole, seemingly for permission but actually for reassurance.

"I'll follow."

Trepidation and determination battling it out inside of her, Mel placed her tanned hand on top of Elivetris's white family she sometimes didn't think of as her own.


	7. No Sadder Sight 4

**Recalled to Life**

**No Sadder Sight**

**2019**

"Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away."

Book II; Chapter V of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

—No Paragon of Good—

A shimmer of black and they were back in the room she had been held in earlier. There was no sign of anyone else until Cole appeared. Elivetris held Mel's hand by her side, giving her a wink. With a wave of her free hand, in shimmered the demon from earlier.

Obviously caught off guard, an energy ball formed in his palm.

"Calm down, Taelos," Cole said breezily, leaning against the same wall he'd knocked the demon against earlier. "We're all friends here."

"Friends," Taelos spat, eyeing Cole with disgust. "You disappear for months, and the first thing you do when you return is kill every demon in the club." He flung out his free hand toward Mel. "Using witches' spells, no less. You're a traitor."

"You're a demon of the Realm, Taelos, and you work for a human. A human. How can you even stand yourself? You're pathetic. Orin was your contact. For the price of a partner's stake in the club, you gained full rights over his soul and partial rights to all the rich, evil little human, rat-scum bastards he brought here. And yet."

Taelos seethed. His energy-ball shook with suppressed rage.

"You know he is right, Taelos. Fortunately, for all our sakes, Mr. Orin has become expendable," Elivetris soothed.

Energy ball extinguished grudgingly, Taelos replied, "So, you want me to kill him, then?"

"Oh, no," Elivetris replied, giving Mel's hand a squeeze. "She will kill him."

The tendrils of Cole's mind were like a steal trap on her own, keeping Mel from doing anything more than flinch. Elivetris was too amused by Taelos's shocked reaction to pay any notice even to that.

"A good witch?" Taelos gawked. "Kill a human?"

Outwardly, she was calm, but inwardly her mind reeled against his. Cole couldn't actually expect – That would be unforgivable. No. No way. Even if Orin did deserve it.

"She'll do it," Cole assured Taelos, speaking directly to Mel. "When I tell her to."

Visibly, she paled. His true intentions halted her denial. There was no other plan. She would prove her loyalty to him by killing a human, no tricks, not because he wanted to see her suffer but because, by doing so, she would fortify Elivetris's loyalty to him.

Taelos's mouth split into a large grin. "I'd quite enjoy seeing that."

"You may watch," Cole allowed. "Bring Orin here."

"Yes," Elivetris said, "Tell him I have brought him the witch."

"What about the Charmed Ones?" Taelos asked. "They're pitching a fit, interrogating any demon they think has information and vanquishing the rest. They're getting answers, too. It won't be long until they find their way to our doorstep."

"I thought they might be close," Cole replied, the ghost of a smile on his face. "Have the Poenas demons lure them into a chase. After fifteen minutes, bring them here. Orin will be dead by then."

Mel hardly noticed Taelos leaving. What Cole was asking her to do was horrific. Kill a human, become a murderer – strengthen the forces of evil. Black and white.

No gray.

In the middle of the room, two figures shimmered in together, their backs to Cole. Orin greeted Mel with a predatory grin, smoothing the jacket of his pinstriped suit, but got no further. Mel froze him.

Cole came around to stand in front of his former associate. "Unfreeze him so that he can see me, but don't let him speak."

Mel unfroze everything but his skeleton and his vocal cords. In an instant, his eyes were wild.

"You know what's coming, don't you, Joseph?"

Orin's eyes were all the way to the side. He was trying to get Taelos's attention, but the demon stood by passively, lighting a cigarette.

"Oh, yes, you know," Cole continued evenly. "Your death. Your afterlife. Your eternal damnation."

Images began churning in Mel's mind's eye, some she remembered from the attack the night before, others foreign, projected to her from Cole. Orin's various crimes.

"Your soul in exchange for incestuous pleasures of the flesh."

More vile images. A boy about six, Orin's favorite nephew, who bore more than a passing resemblance to Mel's youngest cousin, Juni.

Disgust and anger rose in her bruised throat.

"Somewhere along the way, Joseph, you forgot that you are, above all, human. And human beings can't escape payment for their sins."

The images quickened, flickering through her consciousness. Blood pounded in Mel's temples, renewing her headache. In the back of her mind, she knew this was Cole's attempt to make her task easier by filling her with a hateful vengeance, but seeing these things, knowing they would be forever emblazoned on her memory, was torture.

Cole, Elivetris, and Taelos parted to the sides, leaving Mel alone within the range of Orin's vision. The fear reflected there disgusted Mel. She could see it on the faces of his victims. Her breathing came in quick and shallow bursts. I've been practicing for this, she thought violently. The man would die like a bee. She felt as though she was being held back by a leash around her neck that, at any moment, would snap.

"Now."

A throaty scream of rage tore from her as she started forward, bringing up both hands, targeting his heart, going straight for the kill.

Thick streams of blood erupted from Orin's mouth, nose, and eyes, splattering over Mel, ridged with shock. She had exploded his heart in the cavern of his chest. The upright corpse gaped at her obscenely from the ruin of his face. She let it drop, facedown, on the floor.

The sharp sound of clapping echoed hollowly in Mel's ears. "Oy, bravo," Taelos congratulated around the cigarette clamped in his teeth. "Pun's inexcusable, but that was bloody magnificent, little Halliwell witch."

Ignoring him, Cole turned to Elivetris, one eyebrow cocked. "Satisfied?"

Elivetris inclined her head elegantly. "Very. I will not challenge your judgment again. On this matter," she amended, before shimmering away.

Taelos followed her with a, "Cheers," and a wiggle of his pinkie finger.

Mel had not yet moved. Blood still dripped down her face, gathering in her eyelashes and the corners of her mouth. Cole moved to stand in front of her. Gently, he lifted the bottom of her oversized summer camp shirt and used it to blot at Orin's blood. Once it was no longer dripping, Cole stepped back to survey her. Even with blood splattered all over them, she must have looked ridiculously young in her dark green sweatpants, white t-shirt, and socks. What must have been most unsettling, however, was that she was able to meet his eyes.

"I had no idea this would have to happen," Cole admitted. "But, since it did, I don't think I'll be needing you for while."

"No?" she replied, her tone manifesting a previously unknown bitterness she was beginning to feel toward him.

"I'm sorry, Friday. I really am."

"You shouldn't act like you feel bad for what you had me do. I know you can't. Not really."

Cole broke their eye contact. "I'll get rid of the body."

"Don't," she responded wearily, padding over to the nearest corner and sinking her weight against it. "I'm not sorry I killed him."

She wasn't trying to make him feel better, and it sure as hell didn't make her feel any better, either. It was just an honest, godforsaken truth. Melinda Halliwell was no paragon of good, never could be. Both choices would have been wrong, but she found that she could live with being a murderer easier than she could have lived with being a traitor.

To refuse Cole would have been a betrayal of the greater good he was meticulously working toward – which would have strengthened the forces of evil.

Everything, Mel now accepted, was gray.

When she looked up, the place Cole had been standing in was empty. She was sure he was not gone, merely invisible. It seemed he was going to wait until she was safe before he left her. Mel pressed her sticky cheek against the glassy black wall. So now she knew what it took to inject a bit of loyalty into Cole's bereft existence: a body count.

Mel didn't look up at the glow of orbs. In fact, she closed her sore eyes against the purity of the light.

The first thing she heard was Chris's voice ask, "Where'd the demon go?" and then she heard Aunt Paige and Aunt Phoebe screech in unison. Apparently, they'd noticed the body.

"Sick," Wyatt opined, his mouth muffled, probably by his palm. "That's no demon."

"Must be Orin," Chris supplied. "The one demon did say he was human. I didn't believe it…"

She hadn't said anything yet, but Mel could feel her mom approaching her delicately.

"Piper, what – " Aunt Paige stopped herself.

Aunt Phoebe breathed, "Oh my God."

"Melinda?" her mom inquired softly, kneeling beside her, not touching.

She opened her eyes unseeingly; giving no indication that she realized her mom was there. Instead, Mel waited for these shining examples of honorability to put two and two together. It was masochistic, but she was interested to hear how damned she really was.

Her mom stood uncertainly. "Wyatt, get your father. I think she's in shock. I don't want to move her."

Even as Wyatt complied, Aunt Phoebe warned, "Piper, I think risking moving her is better than staying. There's something very wrong here. I can feel it." Mel pictured her looking in the general direction of Cole's invisible presence.

"I'll say there is," Chris agreed, obviously meaning the dead body. "Do you think she did this?"

"How could she? It looks like he exploded," Aunt Paige responded, the disgusted curl of her lip evident in her tone.

"Exactly. Penny got a new power today," Aunt Phoebe pointed out.

"It makes sense," Mom agreed. Out of the corner of her eye, Mel could see she was hugging herself. "She must have been so scared."

"Enraged," Aunt Phoebe amended, "If she was able to tap into that power."

"What difference does that make?" Mom asked hotly, just as Wyatt orbed in with Dad. "It was self-defense."

Aunt Phoebe backed down, saying, "I know, Piper."

"You mean Mel…" Dad went silent. Of course, he couldn't fail to notice the dead body.

Shame flooded through her. For some stupid reason, she'd never even considered her dad judging her actions. She'd only meant to test the Charmed Ones' ability to accept her gray theory, not to actually risk her family's love. Why she thought of them as separate entities likely had a lot to do with Cole. She should have just let him take the body away. Pride wasn't worth this.

"Where is she?" Dad asked, a touch of franticness in his voice.

"She's...Don't, Leo, she's in shock."

But Dad had already crossed the room, bending down to tilt Mel's face towards his. "Sweetheart?"

For once, he didn't have to ask her to talk. She raised her wet eyes, her expression solemn. "I knew he was human," she confessed in a perfectly audible whisper. "But I didn't know I could – I-I had to – " No, that wasn't what she'd meant to say, it wasn't right…only the truth was just too awful. Confused and guilty, she shook her head against her dad's hand.

Heedless of the blood, Dad wiped away Mel's tears with the heels of his hand. Blue-flecked eyes intense, he asked, "Did he hurt you?"

"Not me. Other kids."

Mel let out a choked sob as her dad pulled her against his shoulder in a painfully tight hug. She gripped him back, allowing herself to cry even though she knew Cole was watching. Display of weakness or not, she was too relieved to even want to feign indifference.

Standing, Dad lifted her. Mom was there in an instant, murmuring words of comfort against her back. From the side, Wyatt wrapped his arms as far around their mom and dad as possible. Chris came behind Dad to lay a hand on Mel's head. Aunt Phoebe and Aunt Paige hugged whatever part of the group they could reach to complete the show of solidarity.

Pink tears trailing down her face, Mel raised her eyes to meet Chris's. She knew that she'd lost something in her confession of guilt – the right to be seen as perfectly innocent, a certain amount of trust – but she'd gained something fair more valuable. She understood now why the family deserved to come first: because even Chris, he of the righteous morality, was able to find a bloodless spot over her eyebrow for a brotherly kiss.

She felt Cole's invisible presence slide away, abandoning her for no telling how long. But, for the first time in her life, Mel found she wasn't all that sorry he was gone.


	8. Evil of This Time 1

**Recalled to Life**

**Evil of This Time**

**2025**

"'I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.'"

Book III; Chapter XV of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

—The Thought That Counts—

Too groggy to fully appreciate the implications, Mel was vaguely aware that she was skipping steps as she went from lying barely awake under her covers to standing in front of her full-length, oval mirror already dressed in clothes that definitely could not have come from her closet. The haze she'd woken up to diminished as she narrowed her eyes critically at her reflection. Improbable as it was, the four-inch stiletto knee-highs, absurdly short pleated skirt, and flimsy tit-sling top actually clung appealingly to her frame. She didn't even wobble as she tested out the heels. In fact, she looked completely confident.

Mel glanced around her room suspiciously. Something was very wrong here.

A perfunctory knock and her dad poked his head through the door. Mel tried in vain to cover up the embarrassing – and miraculous – amount of cleavage she was displaying by placing her hands in front of her chest.

Dad didn't seem to notice anything odd about her clothing, or lack thereof, however. He just smiled a good morning and told her, "Better get a move on, kiddo. Cole's already here to pick you up for school."

She blinked at him several times, finally replying, "Of course he is. Because that makes total sense."

Tongue to cheek, she followed the illusion of her father down the stairs, where the illusion of her mother stood in the foyer with Cole, ready to burst with joy at his presence. "Sweetie!" she exclaimed. "Look who it is! It's Cole!"

"I see that," Mel replied, eyeing him carefully in an attempt to discern whether or not he, too, was an illusion.

She was distracted when her mom clapped her hands together boisterously. "How about I bring you two a treat before you leave? I still remember your favorite." To Mel's horror, she began playfully poking Cole in the ribs. "Blueberry muffins, hot from the oven. Come on, Leo," she said, bustling him toward the kitchen and shooting Mel an exaggerated wink.

Eyebrow arched high, Mel turned to Cole, who was snickering under his breath. Not an illusion, she decided. "Well. This is elaborate. I take it you're not here for your usual wham-bam, thank you potions-provider. I actually get to see your smirking face for once. Such a treat." Valiantly trying not to get suckered in by his obvious amusement, she asked stonily, "What do you want?"

He flashed her his most charming grin. "I'm not here for me. This is all for you, Friday. Happy eighteenth," he congratulated magnanimously.

Her lip quirked against her will. "My birthday was technically yesterday, but it is the thought that counts."

"Muffins!" the annoying caricature of Mel's mom squealed, returning with two monstrosities wrapped in white linen. She handed one each to Mel and Cole. "Take a bite now, tell me what you think," she insisted.

Cole agreed readily, saying, "I have missed your cooking, Piper." There was delight in his expression as he chewed. "Oh, that's good," he said before swallowing. He took another bite, seeming to savor it. Mel wondered if this was part of his act or if his sense of taste actually worked here. Wherever here was. He wolfed down the rest of the giant muffin in three bites, leading Mel to believe that the latter was true. So, they were in her head, then.

Mom clapped her hands together, bouncing merrily. "I'm so glad you liked it."

"Uh-oh, you'd better watch the time, Cole." Dad, who hadn't lost his creepy, frozen smile, helped Mel with her backpack. "If you make my little girl late, I'll have to give you a stern talking to."

The three of them chortled with laughter. Mel felt like gagging.

"Okay. Have a super day at school," Mom enthused, and Dad pecked Mel on the cheek.

Cole reached out to open the front door for her. Mel stepped onto the porch willingly, her interest piqued by the cherry red Porsche Carrera GT parked against the curb. Now this was so much more like it.

"Ooh," Dad said in awe, starting out the door.

"No, no, no. You stay there." With her free hand, Mel pushed him back inside and pulled Cole out by the sleeve of his charcoal gray suit jacket. "We can't be late, remember?" She shut the door firmly on her parents' beaming faces. "Laying it on pretty thick, don't you think?" she asked, fixing Cole with an exasperated look.

From his breast pocket, he pulled out a pair of sunglasses, orange-tinted to match his dress shirt, and slipped them on. "I'm bringing your fantasies to life, honey. I thought you'd be pleased."

"My fantasies do not include schmaltzy, bizarreo-land Leave it to Beaver scenes, especially not ones featuring me dressed like this," she scoffed.

"More or less, they do. Besides." As his eyes slid from the swell of her cleavage to the hem of her skirt, she could feel herself flushing. "You look great."

Mel folded her arms across her stomach, not sure if she did it to appear stern or to give him an ever better view down her shirt. Maybe both. "You're obviously a man of refined taste, Cole. I look like a hooker."

He took a step closer. She hoped her indrawn breath wasn't audible. "You look how you've always wanted to feel. Comfortable with your body, daring." He lowered his neck so their lips were only an inch apart. "Sexy."

She backed away. Cole was playing her, obviously, and she wasn't sure how much she was willing to let herself enjoy the pretense. "Whatever. I'm driving."

Mel held up her still warm muffin for a trade. He took the key from his pocket less than casually, not quite able to hide the fact that he was clearly salivating for food he could actually taste.

She plucked the key from his fingers with a sardonic, "Thank you ever so much, darling," deposited the wrapped muffin in his hand, and headed down the walk.

As they both opened their car doors to get in, Mel ventured, "So let me guess what I'd find if I went to school today. Hm, my teachers falling all over themselves to tell me how brilliant I am." She put the key in the ignition and was rewarded with the engine's satisfying purr. "Wyatt and Chris'll orb in halfway through AP Government because, darn it, they just can't complete the vanquish without my expertise." Taking a look in her rearview mirror, she gently guided the Porsche onto the street. "What else? The cafeteria will serve edible food for once, calculus won't suck. Oh, and my peers, of course, will be fawning over me, begging me to run for class president. I even bet Penn will develop a sudden case of laryngitis, leaving little ol' me to replace her as Cosette in the musical, to rave reviews, despite the fact that I've never been onstage in my life."

Glancing up from the prized muffin in his lap, Cole gave her a wide smile. "I've always thought of you as an Eponine – " He leaned forward to press a button on the stereo. The character's galling, though not totally appropriate, solo "On My Own" trilled out of the speakers. "But, sure. All that and more."

"First off, when I wake up for real, it'll be Saturday, and there's no way I'm going to school in my sleep. Second: boring," she pronounced emphatically. "I might've daydreamed longingly for you to grant me this kind of shallow, me-obsessed alternate reality in moments of weakness, but I've matured. You obviously haven't noticed – I've managed to turn out remarkably well-adjusted."

"No thanks to me."

Mel waved off that dry observation, concentrating on making a sleek pair of sunglasses appear between her fingers. Cole's power hummed through her body, putting a fierce grin onto her face.

"Buckle up, Mr. Turner," she advised him, stopping the Porsche in the middle of the suddenly clear street. Mel flipped the track to the exact song she wanted to hear, "Queen of the Highway" by The Doors, and shifted the Carrera GT into gear. "You're in for a ride."


	9. Evil of This Time 2

**Recalled to Life**

**Evil of This Time**

**2025**

"'I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.'"

Book III; Chapter XV of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

—Adapting the Fantasy—

Zero to sixty in three-point-nine seconds. Cole nearly choked on a piece of muffin when Mel took off. She drove like a stunt driver, both feet on the pedals – careening around tight corners, jumping hills. The wind whipped her long brown hair around her face but didn't diminish the volume of the song blasting from the stereo.

Traffic abruptly appeared on the road she'd turned down. Mel tightened her grip on the steering wheel. Cole was testing her, as always. Maintaining her speed, she swerved in and out, barely avoiding collision after collision. When they unexpectedly reached the Golden Gate Bridge, she slammed on the breaks, twisted the wheel, and pulled the clutch. The smell of burnt rubber filled her nostrils as they spun out. The instant she had control again, she started them off across the bridge, cruising at an easy ninety-five. The adrenaline in the air settled into an infectious buzz.

"Whew," Cole interjected, hand rested on the top of the convertible's windshield. His laughter, like hers, was a little breathless. "You're a lot of fun, Friday. Have I ever told you that?

"I'm the only fun you've got in your whole damned life," she declared cheerfully. "How have you been, by the way? It's been, what, four months? Five?" Truthfully, they both knew she remembered exactly how long he'd been gone, down to the hour. But that didn't mean she had to admit to it out loud.

"I've been busy," Cole shrugged.

"Courageously battling oblivion, precariously balancing light and dark."

"It's been rough, but – " He repeated his shrug. "You know I try not to involve you too much."

"Nope. Just enough so I don't actually know what I'm helping you with." She managed to keep her tone free of bitterness.

He patted her bare knee, letting his hand linger. "Couldn't do it without you."

"Mm. Telling me exactly what I want to hear. Nice job adapting the fantasy."

"Just letting you know you're appreciated." His fingertips trailed lightly up her thigh as he removed his hand. The sensation made her whole body clench. The knowing smirk he didn't even attempt to hide effectively pissed her off.

"Well, thanks. Hey, if you really want to show me how much you care, you can reimburse my parents for all the herbal remedies and Wicca therapy sessions it took to get your friend Mr. Orin out of my nightmares."

No response. His profile was completely fixed. It frustrated her that she was unable tell if she'd actually hit a nerve or if he was manipulating her still.

Sarcasm more delicate now, Mel said, "Don't feel too bad, Cole. Every family needs a black sheep crazy."

Nothing. Her hand hovered over the transmission. She thought maybe some more tricks would relieve the tension, but decided against it with a long sigh. "All right. As beautifully as this car handles, you and I both know bribing me with it isn't necessary. I'd do anything you asked, regardless." She threw off her sunglasses into the wind knowing they'd just disappear and muted the radio.

When he finally spoke, his amiable tone was forced. "What if I were to tell you that I don't want any favors, just the pleasure of your company?"

Mel laughed unkindly. "I would reply with a resounding, 'Bullshit,' and further speculate that you purposefully deprive yourself of the pleasure of my company for various unhealthy reasons, not least of which, I would say, is your remarkable propensity for self-flagellation."

He shifted in his seat, shooting her a glare. "Yes, please, 'Batter my heart, three-person God.'" Harshly, he added, "Are you suggesting I should take over your life? If I'd wanted that, I could've done it easily. Especially when you were a kid."

What was he after? Reassurances? "I appreciate your restraint, Cole. What I'm suggesting is that there is such a thing as compromise. Partnership, even."

"You scratch my itch, I'll scratch yours?"

Thankful that their conversation was building momentum again, she was able to muster a wry sneer. "Whatever you think you know about my 'itches' isn't even the half of it."

He made a soft, appraising sound. "Maybe I should've staged this little visit in the bedroom."

"I have a boyfriend."

"Congratulations, Friday. You've found yourself a Bruce Baldwin, a blond-haired oaf who'll treat you like daddy's special little princess."

"Condescending to play the role of the jealous ex?" She flicked her eyes up and over. "What have I done to deserve this?"

"Plenty. About this Bruce Baldwin – "

"Derek Weis."

"That's the one. In quantifiable terms, how much do you…" He paused for a grin, continuing, "…loathe the abject worthlessness of his neutered existence?"

This time Mel laughed genuinely. "Let me put it to you this way: I'm the leading points scorer for the girl's team; he's barely a starter for the guy's. When we play a game of pickup in his driveway, he doesn't even try. He'll let me win just so he never has to feel the shame of getting his ass beat by a girl. What a gentleman."

"Why do you put up with him?"

"I had to say yes to one of the guys Penny strong-armed into asking me out," she replied, only a little defensively.

"You deserve better."

Mel was willing to take that at face value, but no further. "That much is certainly true, so why don't you stop with the pretending you give a shit about my high school love life right there and cut to the part where you need my help."

"I don't need your help. Your family needs your help."

"Do elaborate."

"Have you noticed your dear cousin Penelope acting unusual lately?"

"Yeah, she's been insanely depressed ever since she found out that Jared Pullman cheated on her. Chalk that up to her cupid blood…" Mel trailed off, noting his expression. "Or not. What do you know?"

"Have you been keeping an eye on your brother's Phoenix witch girlfriend?"

"Wait. Bianca? I stopped. Chris saved her before she had to make her first kill; they're in love. Dad even gave her a position at the School. She can't be evil." Again, his expression stopped her. "Ah, eff me. She's evil."

"Not by choice. Her old coven has been controlling her. She doesn't know it, but that's one of the many useful properties of that birthmark she has on her wrist."

"And the plot unfolds. Someone hired the coven to kill Penny, so they're using evil Bianca to slip her some magical crazy pills in hopes that she'll off herself."

"No. But damned if you don't have an appealingly devious mind. What they're hoping is that she'll become vengeful so that they can send her to her past life as Melinda Warren, mother to young, impressionable Prudence Warren – "

Light dawned. "Where they'll both be burned alive at the stake, only to rise from the ashes, born again as a Phoenix witches, making the entire Warren line Phoenix, adding to the ranks of their rapidly dwindling bloodline a whole gaggle of extremely powerful witches, including, most especially, the Charmed Ones. With that pedigree they sure as hell wouldn't have to make a living as mercenaries anymore."

"You are your mother's daughter. I always considered her the smart one."

"I'm sure she'd be oh so thrilled to hear it." Mel heaved an exasperated sigh. "Well, neither of us wants me to be a Phoenix. Sure, I'd get a power boost, but, if Bianca's any indication, the angst would be suffocating. So, how long do I have to stop this?"

"About two hours."

There went her plans to sleep-in before work.

"Sorry," he said off her aggravated look. "Prophecy came out of nowhere."

"I don't suppose you're going to show me said prophecy? Or is it prophecies?"

"Come on, Friday. Don't you trust me?"

The look on his face was so overtly wicked that Mel gave in and snickered derisively. "Fine, whatever. Consider it taken care of."

The matter settled she was afraid he and the dreamscape he'd created would vanish at any moment. Impulsively, Mel slammed on the breaks and shifted the Porsche into park. Before she could lose her nerve, she unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned over in what she hoped was a provocative manner.

"Has this joyride been my reward, or do I get something else for my services?"

In a controlled motion, Cole tucked his sunglasses back into his pocket. He leaned over as well, meeting her wide eyes. Her pulse skipped erratically, unable to settle on a rhythmic beat. Was he actually going to let her get away with this? Maybe eighteen was the milestone he'd been waiting for.

"Melinda, are you sure you want this?" More than his warning tone, the rare use of her given name should have been enough to get her to back down.

Instead, she feigned a devil-may-care shrug and smile. "Why not? It's not like any of this is real." She placed two fingers on the underside of his lightly stubbled chin, giving him ample opportunity to initiate the kiss himself. Cole remained impassive. Naturally, he was going to make this as difficult for her as possible.

Swallowing the nervous tick in her throat, she touched her lips to his. Dating Derek Weis wasn't for nothing – he was practice. Nimbly, Mel used her teeth to coax Cole's mouth open. Exhaling jaggedly, she skimmed her tongue against his. The more she teased him, the stronger his pulse jumped against her fingers.

She knew full well that it had been a virtual eternity since he'd felt desire without the blunt edge of numbness behind it; Mel was perhaps the only person in the world who could give him that feeling back. Giddily, she realized the power she could have over him.

The angle of the kiss abruptly changed. Cole tangled his fingers through her hair, tugging back so he could slant his mouth over hers. Soothing strokes at the nape of her neck timed with the thrust of his tongue lulled away any thoughts of domination. Her fingertips fell to his shoulder, trailed his collarbone down the open neck of his shirt. With each stroke, his tongue pushed deeper and harder. In time, her hips rolled up and back against her seat.

She flattened her palm on his chest, wanting to feel his burning skin against more of her body. The pressure of his hand around the base of her skill had become painful, but Mel couldn't help worsening it by attempting to shift their bodies closer. She needed to be on his lap, feeling the heat from one of his hands spreading from the small of her back and the fingers of his other working beneath her skirt –

It wasn't until she heard the pathetic whimpering groans issuing from the back of her own throat that she had enough sense to register panic.

He was teaching her a lesson.

With all the self-preserving will she could muster, she broke off the kiss. Fixing her blurry eyes on the dashboard, she fought the tremble that looped through her.

"Not a sound," she managed to grit out.

Hating him silently, she waited for a snicker, or a taunt, or – since he seemed to be feeling particularly nasty – a snide comment comparing her to Aunt Phoebe.

None came. Out of her peripheral, Mel caught him hunched over, elbows propped on his thighs, hand pressed to his brow. He flicked his wrist over so he could read his watch. "I think it's time you woke up."

Mel closed her eyes. "In more ways than one, right?"

"I'll be seeing you."

"Don't be a stranger," she told the man who'd raised her in his image.


	10. Evil of This Time 3

**Recalled to Life**

**Evil of This Time**

**2025**

"'I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.'"

Book III; Chapter XV of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

—Evil Doesn't Play Fair—

A haze overtook her during the transition from warm leather to warm sheets. She kicked them off as she sat up in bed. There would be no hiding under her covers, no indulging herself with humiliated tears. Two hours to save the Warren line, then it was off to the law library to shelve books for the rest of the day.

But, she promised herself as she guided her legs into an authentically ratty pair of jeans, if I fail and get myself turned into a Phoenix, Cole will be the first to fall under my wrath.

The bastard.

Stuffing her head inside a rec soccer t-shirt from fourth grade she'd saved from her dad's oil rag collection, Mel couldn't help a small smirk.

The sexy bastard, she amended.

To be fair, he had warned her, but she'd been both cocky and skittish, not a winning combination. Next time – and she was acutely thrilled that there had even been a first time, never mind the possibility of a next – she'd be better prepared to give as good as she got.

Really, if she was going to be pissed off at Cole, the more legitimate reason would be his refusal to show her the prophecies. Having to swallow the line that they were working toward a vague 'greater good' was trying her patience. She'd have to figure out a way to get him to stop acting like she had a bench role in all of this. She knew better, and that was her common sense talking, not her ego.

Why else would he have chosen her over any of her cousins? Namely Penny, who, number one, was undeniably much more powerful, and, number two, looked so much like her mother – in aura if not in exact physical features – that teachers who'd been around long enough habitually called her Phoebe before doing double-takes and correcting themselves.

How much more powerful was Penny going to be now that she was semi-evil? Mel's freezing powers still might not work on her, and blowing her up was definitely out. In point of fact, unlike her mom's easy access, that power required so much anger, nearly boarding on hatred, that, aside from a few minor tantrums involving inanimate objects, she hadn't been able to tap into it since that night over four years ago. The power lay dormant inside her, its very existence tempting her to misuse it again.

At any rate, it was inevitable that she'd have to involve, at the very least, Wyatt and Chris. "But not yet," she mused aloud. "Keep them in the dark as long as possible. Right, Sydney?" Mel's brown cat meowed in solidarity, though he made no move to uncurl himself from his position on one of her pillows. "Lazy," Mel muttered, jealous.

The house was that empty quiet when she walked into the hallway. She turned back to her door and, sure enough, there was a Post-It stuck on her door, reading, "Gone to Italy to look at property with Phoebe, et. al. Be back this evening. Love, Mom. P.S., Gramps leaves tomorrow. Late family dinner at the restaurant? Someone will call."

Charmed Ones suddenly and conveniently out of the country. Evil Bianca was good.

After stopping by the bathroom to brush her teeth, throw up her hair, and put on some deodorant, Mel hit the attic. The Book was somewhat vague about Phoenix witches. She had committed the entry into memory the day Bianca had come onto the scene:

"Descended from the Witch Trials with vengeance in their hearts, the Phoenix are a family of very elite and very powerful assassin witches born with the distinctive birthmark of the Phoenix, symbolizing their rise from Salem's ashes. They have no allegiances other than to their own vengeance, and they will seek out and kill any bounty they're hired to hunt down."

What Mel needed was information specific to the birthmark. For that, she opened the blank pages of the Anthology, said very clearly, "Phoenix comma birthmark," and watched the pages fill in. Upon Chris's request, Wyatt had created the Anthology and linked it to the archives at the School. "Better than Google," Chris had pronounced it.

Her inquiry led her to an account from the eighteen hundreds of a Phoenix witch who'd betrayed her coven to run away with a demon they'd been contracted to kill. In order to keep her coven from forcing her to vanquish him, she'd created a binding potion specifically for the area of her birthmark. Mel cross-referenced that information in three other texts before finally landing upon the recipe. She raised an eyebrow.

The fact that most of the items on the list were of the nefarious variety wasn't nearly as surprising as the fact that many of them could be substituted for more innocuous ingredients without losing, really, any of the power. The Phoenix witch who'd devised the potion had clearly made a conscious effort to delve deeply into dark magic.

As Mel jotted down the recipe, she tweaked it so she wouldn't have to raid her private stores. Then she made a quick a trip to the kitchen for a granola bar and the ingredients for the potion.

She was nearly finished with it when she finally relented and called out, "Wyatt! Chris! We have problems!"

Wyatt orbed in first, dressed in sweats and a crinkled white t-shirt and looking generally wiped out.

"Med School got you down?" she commiserated. Wyatt, who could do anything, was actually struggling to balance doctor training with demon fighting. Mel would be lying if she said she didn't enjoy seeing him challenged for once in his life. It was good character building.

"Yeah," he said, running his hand through his cropped dark blond hair. "I fell asleep at my desk again. I completely missed breakfast with Verity, but she said she'd study with me over lunch."

"Oh, she is smitten with you," Mel teased, adding in a couple sticks of cinnamon.

Wyatt tried to smile but didn't quite make it. Verity – genuinely sweet, freakishly intelligent – had only one fault: she was mortal.

Feeling generous, Mel offered, "You know Wyatt, Dad once told me that the Halliwell family magic protects him. You could make it work with Verity. She wouldn't have to be in that much danger."

Wyatt gave her a sad sort of smile. "You think?"

"Talk to Dad," she advised. Her caring tone hardened when Chris orbed in finally. "What took you so long?"

"I was on the toilet."

"Do you know where Bianca is?"

Chris quirked an eyebrow. "She's running errands with Penn, why?"

"Yoh, boy."

Wyatt had come around the small table Mel was using and was poking at her ingredients. "What is all this?"

Adopting a sneer, Chris folded his arms across his chest. "'Practicing' again?"

Flatly, Mel replied, "You object to me honing my craft."

"I object to the fact that I keep catching you making these ridiculously complicated, specific potions supposedly just on a whim, and yet…" He trailed off, noting the open Anthology. "A binding potion?"

"Do you have anything of Bianca's on you?" Mel covered her eyes with one hand. "Just throw whatever it is in there. I don't want to know if you're carrying around her thong. Or, worse, if you're wearing it."

That got a laugh out of Wyatt and an incredulous noise out of Chris. "What is wrong with you?"

Voice conciliatory, she patted him on the back. "Okay, don't get all defensive – we can totally fix it – but Bianca is evil."

Instantly, Chris got all defensive. "I am so sick of people not trusting her," he yelled, launching into a tirade about judging eyes at Magic School.

Ignoring him, Wyatt asked Mel, "What makes you think so?"

Chris, whose righteous indignation had nearly carried him into the hallway, threw up his hands. "Yes, please, some evidence."

"Fine. You'll agree that Penn hasn't been her usual, sun-shiny self. In fact," Mel added, suddenly remembering, "She's been so bad lately Pheona the empath can't even stand to be in the same room with her. Yet another convenient circumstance."

"Penn's a seventeen year-old half-Cupid with a broken heart," Chris scoffed. "What does that have to do with – "

"And you'll further agree that something has been off with Bianca."

Narrowing his eyes, Chris stopped pacing. "She's had headaches."

Unable to hide her smugness, Mel said, "Blackouts, I'll bet."

"So it's a conspiracy." Wyatt was catching on.

"Try to follow me. Penn is becoming evil because she's being influenced by Bianca, who is, in turn, being controlled by her old coven. They want to add the Warren line to their ranks."

"There. That's it. That's ridiculous. You can't make Phoenix. They're born."

"Ask yourself this, Christopher, of whom is Penn the reincarnation?" That shut him up. Mel put a hand on her hip. "Why do you always think you're so right?"

"Why do you always dress like you're homeless?"

She had to laugh at the non sequitur insult. "The same reason you dress like you're homosexual. We live in San Francisco, helps us blend."

"Dude, Bianca's totally your beard," Wyatt snickered, adding, "LesBianca, it's perfect."

"Shut up."

"Anyway," Mel continued, smirking, "This potion will make Les – I mean Bianca – not evil when it's absorbed into the skin of her birthmark. Do you have something of hers or not?"

Taking out his wallet, Chris held up a picture of the two of them nestled together on a park bench. Mel nodded, and he dropped it in, where it dissolved instantly, no need of stirring.

"Should be good to go," she pronounced, picking out a bottle. "We've got no time to waste here, kids, and by no time I mean, like, we need to do this right now."

"If you were so suspicious of Bianca and Penn, why didn't you tell anyone sooner?" Chris demanded.

"I had to confirm first," she lied. "I couldn't exactly out Penn's emerging dark side tendencies while she was in the kitchen learning all Mom's best recipes or completing the pseudo-Power of Three with you two – like the sister you never had."

Wyatt's face kind of crumpled. "Mel, it's just because of her premonitions," he said, as if it'd never occurred to him that she'd feel left out.

Not that she did, of course. She was too tough to let something as trivial as family politics bother her. Much. Wyatt was Golden Boy and Penny was the Princess. Such was life.

"You're paranoid," Chris said succinctly.

"Hello, pot, I'm kettle." Picking up the set of crystals, she arranged them on the floor, leaving the last one to the side. "Okay, Wyatt. Orb in Penn and Chris's one and only."

"What if they really are shopping?" Chris put in unhelpfully.

"Trust me, they're not."

Mel toed the crystal into position at the first sign of orbs, which materialized into Bianca alone.

"The hell? Where's Penn?"

"You're too late," Bianca snarled and slammed her hands against the powerful blue energy, which knocked her flat on her ass. She was up an instant later, making a second futile attempt.

Wyatt said, "We should probably de-evilfy Bianca before she knocks herself out."

"I'll do it," Chris volunteered grudgingly, stepping forward to pick up the vile from the table.

"Just rub a glob over her birthmark," Mel advised. "It won't affect you."

Determined, Chris kicked aside a crystal and grabbed for Bianca's wrist with his lotioned hand. Pulling a distasteful face, Mel looked away. Bianca didn't have a chance to fight back. As the potion seeped through her skin, she began to yell, scratching at her wrist like an asylum patient.

Chris fell to his knees with Bianca, shouting at Mel, "You knew this was going to hurt her!"

"The potion's working, she'll be fine," Mel insisted, turning her head a little to the side so she didn't have to see Wyatt's horrified gape.

Bianca calmed down after a few tense minutes, her eyes half-closed and her head rested on Chris's chest. They were both breathing shallowly.

"Ask her about Penn."

Chris fixed Mel with a glare that clearly said, "Give her a minute, you bitch."

Biting her tongue, Mel showed equal restraint by not saying, "Fuck off, Chris. We don't have time for coddling."

Demonstrating more maturity than either of them, as befitted her age – more than three years older than Wyatt – Bianca swallowed the pain and spoke, "Penn's in a protective circle. They've sent her consciousness back already, to kill a man named Matthew Tate and to convert her daughter, Prudence. I'm sorry. I didn't – "

"We know it wasn't your fault," Mel was quick to assure her, mostly in order to win back some points from her brothers.

"It's been such a godawful week," she continued, letting Chris help her to her feet. "I wanted to tell you something was wrong with me, but, every time I tried, I couldn't get the words out."

Guilt expressly on his face, Chris took a pen from his pocket and scribbled down a spell on the notepad next to the potions ingredients. Ripping off the paper, he seemed to hesitate before catching himself and handing the spell over to Wyatt. "Use this spell to get to Melinda Warren. I'll take care of Penn."

Bianca, standing tall and of her own accord, asserted, "They saw me orb out, they'll be ready. I'm coming with you." Her rigid tone invoked images of serious payback. Mel respected that.

Chris accepted it. "Mel, you go with Wyatt."

"I wasn't waiting for your permission."

"You'll need a triquetra," he said. From one of the table's drawers, he took out a piece of chalk and tossed it to her.

Catching it, she asked Bianca, "What did you use to influence Penn? And how do we counteract it?"

"A potion, and you can't. At least not directly. She has to choose to be good on her own, it's the only way she can save herself." Bianca shrugged at the incredulous looks she was getting. "Freewill."

"That's not fair," Wyatt protested. "The potion took away her freewill in the first place."

"Evil doesn't play fair," Bianca replied, her tone indicating that Wyatt should know this already.

He made a helpless gesture. "In that case, evil always gets the upper hand. You can't force someone to be good, not really."

"That's the truth," Chris agreed. "So we just have to do the best that we can." Making eye contact with Bianca, he orbed out.

"Don't fail," Bianca said to Mel. "Wyatt and Chris won't end up Phoenix, they'll just be raised evil, but you will be one of us. You don't ever want to know the pain that this mark brings," she said before disappearing in a feint haze of red.

"Don't worry, Mel," Wyatt told her resolutely. "You and me, Power de Dos."

Mel got to work drawing the triquetra while Wyatt went to the Book.

He murmured to himself as he skimmed the entry about Melinda Warren. "Here we go. Matthew Tate. Oh, nice picture. He looks like he should be on the cover of a romance novel, classy. Hm, Warlock, will copy any power used against him, Melinda Warren cursed him into a locket for all eternity for betraying her…Oh, interesting, Aunt Prue – this part of the entry's in her handwriting – found the locket three hundred-odd years later, accidentally unleashed Tate, and then cursed him back into the locket, presumably for all eternity. Again."

"This is kind of lame," Mel vented, stepping back from the finished triquetra. "We have to go all the way back in time to stop Penn from vanquishing a warlock. I mean, I know the point is the intent – vengeance, suffering, whatever – but still." To herself, she added, Warlock, demon, human, Elder, doesn't matter. Some people just deserve to die.

"Magic doesn't make sense a lot of the time," Wyatt shrugged. "It's, like, eighty percent emotion."

"True enough." She put the piece of chalk in the front pocket of her jeans for safekeeping. "So what's the plan, Twice-Blessed Heir?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, coming to stand beside her, facing the triquetra chalk drawing.

"How do you and Chris and sometimes Penn usually go about these kind of things?"

"Oh. Well, personally, I just kind of like to barrel in there and hope for the best. Usually works out."

Mel considered his proposal. "I'm strangely okay with that."

"All right, then. Cool." Wyatt held up Chris's spell.

"Think about finding Tate just before he goes to see Melinda Warren," she suggested.

"That'll do it," Wyatt replied, and they both chanted:

"Hear these words, hear our rhyme,

Heed the hope within our minds:

Send us back to where we'll find

What we wish in place and time."

A colorful, swirling vortex appeared inside the triquetra.

"Ladies first," Mel said, bolting for it.


	11. Evil of This Time 4

**Recalled to Life**

**Evil of This Time**

**2025**

"'I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.'"

Book III; Chapter XV of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

—Think of the Warren Line—

The time traveling involved a lot less spinning than Mel had hoped for; she ended up ostensibly sprinting through to the other side, barely missing hitting a tree face-first, full-force. She had enough sense to step aside for Wyatt, who also managed to come to a halt before he brained himself.

Mel tilted her head up through the sun-lit trees. Though it was early morning here, too, the alien sense of the environment was unmistakable. She and Wyatt had walked through a doorway to a different century and a different coast. Surreal.

"Glamour?" she prompted, taking in how incredibly out of place Wyatt looked.

Yellow globes of light spun around her a moment before settling into a thin haze. When she looked over at Wyatt, she had to snicker at his unfortunate hose and breeches ensemble. He even had himself a three-cornered hat. Mel didn't much care how she looked in her stiff, black wool dress – at least, unlike some people, her brother wasn't about to dress her up like a dirty dove.

"Let's go find ourselves the warlock ex-love of our imprisoned matriarch-slash-cousin," Wyatt prompted, starting toward the clearing.

Before Mel could follow him, the sound of a cat mewling made her turn. Sure enough, there, directly underneath the large oak face where the portal had opened, was Sydney, his head noticeably titled in favor of his blue-eyed side.

Wyatt noted, "Looks like your cat tagged along to keep an eye on you. Literally."

"Looks like he did," Mel replied suspiciously. "Are you coming?" she asked Sydney, who fell into step at her heels.

As they walked, she occupied herself with coming up with a spell to counter the potion's effects on Penny. Judging by Bianca's behavior, the evilness factor was likely to make her irrational, so, freewill clause or no, Mel figured it would be easy enough to blindside Penny with a fastidiously-worded spell.

"Huh," Wyatt said when the reached the edge of the woods. Several seventeen-century Salem dwellers were going about their morning business, none of them wearing anything that bore more than a passing resemblance to his starched ensemble. "I guess I went more Amish than Puritan. My mistake." Pushing Mel back into the safety of the woods, he continued, "Luckily, I have a better idea."

The yellow globes crossed Mel's vision again, removing her glamour. "And what's that?" she asked.

"Hold on, let me think. Penn made this up for me. You know how she loves haiku." Murmuring a few variations to himself, he finally settled on the right one:

"Invisible us –

Our perceived non-existence

Hides us thoroughly."

A chill shuddered through Mel. She bent down and picked up Sydney, using the furry bundle to warm herself. He let out a disgruntled noise at being treated like a muff, but generally accepted it.

"Nice spell," Mel said, acknowledging that maybe Penny had more to contribute than the sheer force and quantity of her powers.

Wyatt scanned the faces of the townspeople. He pointed to a dark-haired, moderately good-looking man walking purposefully further into town. "That's our guy, come on."

Mel set out after him, letting Sydney drop to the ground. He took the lead, turning a corner behind Tate.

"That's creepy. It's like he knows who we're following," Wyatt observed.

"Maybe he does," Mel answered vaguely. Much more fascinating than the magical mysteries she'd long since accepted as a part of Sydney's very nature was the scenery around them.

Walking by a collection of storefronts, they strolled down the muddy footpaths like they owned the place. Some people skirted around them, not even pausing to wonder why they'd gone out of their way, while others passed through them like they were no more tangible than ghosts. It was an extremely strange feeling, like having her insides splashed with cold water. After the first encounter, Mel purposefully stepped in front of a few people just for the hell of it.

While they paused to half-listen in on Tate haggling with a man selling tobacco, Wyatt continued his inquiry regarding Sydney. "Chris thinks there's something very strange about your cat. Like, worryingly strange." As they set off again, Wyatt admitted, "Once in a while, when you're not around, Chris'll try to get it, you know, to experiment with it, but that cat has the uncanny ability to disappear into nothing."

"So? Mom and them had a familiar once. Kit, I think – Ooh." Lips still formed in a tight 'o,' Mel stopped dead in front of the open door of the blacksmith's shop. So this was where the Puritans kept all their very hearty, very shirtless men folk. One in particular had a dusting of brown hair over his broad chest, just the way she liked it. The soot from the forge obscured most of his face, making it easy for her to mentally transpose the image of a dirty smirk and hooded blue eyes.

Before a fantasy scenario could begin to unfold in her head, Wyatt pulled her out of her reverie. "Task at hand, you pervert. What would Derek say?"

Mel scoffed but allowed herself to be dragged away. "I'm the pervert? As if I hadn't discovered the communal big-box-o'-porn you and Chris had stashed under the bathroom sink. And, if you'll recall, I was thirteen at the time. You should've done your brotherly duty and protected me from those sordid images by not hiding them right next to the extra soap."

Wyatt, a pronounced shade of pink, cleared his throat. "There's the jail. Okay. I think it's time for straight tactics."

Mel felt her body breaking up in orbs. She reformed inside of a cramped cell that smelled strongly of manure, Wyatt beside her and Sydney at her feet.

Penny paced in front of the thick wooden door, snarling to herself and clutching at the locket around her neck. In the faint natural light, Mel could see that Penny had been paler in this life, blonder even than Wyatt. Regardless, there was no mistaking her. The height was there, the bone structure. Melinda Warren seemed to be in her mid-twenties, though it hardly made a difference. Penny had always – irritatingly – looked older.

"What do you think? How do we snap her out of it?" Wyatt asked.

"A spell to get her, I don't know, to remember who she really is, as Penny Halliwell and Melinda Warren. Getting the exact right wording, that's the trick."

Wyatt visibly got an idea. "Actually, just one word. Remember."

"You think that'll – Damn, I think I hear people. One of them is probably him. If we're perceived to not exist, can they perceive our powers?"

"No, I'd have to say the counter-spell, but then we'd be seen, and who knows what would happen then. It's not like we can use our powers against Tate, he'd take them." A force of evil with mastery over Wyatt's nearly infinite magic was the worst-case scenario to end all worst-case scenarios. "Shit. I think this is why Chris always wants to ax my 'barrel in there and hope for the best' strategy, the turd."

"Doesn't matter, because I'm brilliant. Say the counter-spell, but just on me, then follow my lead."

Whereas Chris would have most likely balked at letting Mel take control, Wyatt gave her the metaphorical reigns and said the counter-spell:

"Invisible you,

Your perceived non-existence –

Unnecessary."

The moment the shudder-chill slid away, Mel flicked her wrists, freezing anyone just beyond the cell door. Tate already had one copy of the freezing power; a second copy was no great loss. "Penn," she said, wanting to announce herself quickly.

Penny spun around, face drawn up in an ugly grimace. "You," she growled, telekinetically pitching Mel back into the nearest wall.

She hit tail-end first, her chin pressed securely to her chest to protect her head.

Grimacing as she got to her feet, Mel put out her hands as conciliatory gesture. "Wait, hold on. I'm not here to stop you. I followed Wyatt and Chris. They could be here any minute. I wanted to warn you."

"And why would you want to do that, cousin?" Penny sneered. "You don't know what it's like to be betrayed – in two lives, no less."

"I don't give a good goddamn why you're doing this, Penny. I just want the power." Making steady eye contact with her, she said with all the sincerity she could muster, "I want to be a Phoenix witch."

Penny twisted her face into an unnatural sneer. "So. Prudence Melinda is bad, bad girl. Mom did say I needed to watch over you. I guess once you become a murderer, your mind works a little differently."

"You're about to find out all about it."

Penny's eyes flashed manically. "I'm not afraid of that. I'm afraid of living in a world where men, be they human or warlock, have mastery over women and witches."

"Good. But you know killing Tate won't be enough to make you a Phoenix. You have to truly want your revenge, revel in it, and then you have to go to your death thinking of nothing else."

"I know of nothing else," Penny snapped.

"That's not true. You've never killed, not in either of your lives. But I have. Before you kill Tate, a man part of you still loves, you have to know what it feels like." Mel stepped forward. "That's why I'm here. To show you."

"What do I have to do?" Penny asked hesitantly.

"Just close your eyes for a second. I want you to try to get a premonition from me."

When Penny reluctantly complied, Mel placed her hands flat over her temples, hoping that she didn't get an actual premonition that would betray Cole. She avoided touching Penny and Aunt Phoebe as much as possible for just that reason.

Silently, Wyatt appeared behind Penny, placing his hands lightly on top of Mel's. In unison, they said:

"Remember."

Mel could feel the current of Wyatt's magic flow from his hands through hers. Penny grasped Wyatt's wrists, her mouth falling open, eyes turning glassy. Wyatt caught her under the elbows when she went limp and gently rested her on the hay-covered dirt.

From her drawn expression, it was obvious that Penny's consciousness had turned inward. Bianca had been right; Penny would have to make the choice herself. Waiting for her to do it made both Mel and Wyatt very nervous.

"Those guys have been frozen out there for a long time," Wyatt reminded her.

"We'll be fine, so long as no else comes. They'll hold," Mel replied, hoping the self-assurance in her tone wouldn't turn out to be arrogance. "But how are we supposed to tell when it's safe to unfreeze them?"

Yellow globes of light surrounded Wyatt, leaving him glamoured into Tate. "We'll test her," he said, his voice unrecognizable.

Mel moved back as Wyatt-Tate went to stand directly over Penny. The first indication that she was looking at Wyatt-Tate and not through him was the tremor in her hands, pressed flat against her sides. Under her thin white blouse, her chest rose and fell at an increasingly rapid rate. Glancing briefly at his sister, Wyatt-Tate crouched near Penny's feet. With one finger, he stroked her ankle.

Her response was instantaneous. Flinching violently, Penny skittered away from him. Before Mel could even throw out a hand to freeze it, Penny had the chain of a locket telekinetically wrapped around his throat.

Thinking to intervene by giving her a swift kick to the ribs, Mel started forward, but Wyatt-Tate threw out one hand to stop her in her tracks. His other hand was the only thing between the necklace's thick, linked chain and his windpipe.

"Melinda Warren," he rasped out. "You don't have it in you to hate anyone, not even me."

"Yes, I do," Penny spat, holding out her empty palm. An hysterical pitch to her voice, she chanted:

"Because you've wronged me,

I summon the dagger that

Will mean my revenge."

A dagger smoked into Penny's upturned palm, and she lovingly gripped it by the handle, its point gleaming like black diamond.

"Wyatt, she's not going to listen to you," Mel warned snappishly, attempting to twist out of his magical hold.

The tendons in his neck were bulging. Abused veins turned the skin of his face a ruddy purple. Saliva gurgled behind his every forced word. "Think of your daughter. Is my death worth her life? Think of the Warren line. Revenge isn't worth their suffering – Ach, och."

Penny drew the necklace chain tighter still. Wyatt sounded like he was swallowing his own tongue.

Mel fought harder against her invisible restraints. "Penn, listen to what he's saying. He's not Tate. He's Wyatt, your cousin Wyatt. You don't want to kill him."

"Stop trying to trick me!" Penny screamed shrilly, sending Mel a telekinetic bitch-slap that made her bite deeply into the meat of her tongue.

A pool of coppery blood filled her mouth, and she spat bitterly onto the ground. From somewhere behind her, she heard Sydney hiss.

On her knees, Penny advanced toward Wyatt, who stubbornly remained glamoured into Tate. Though he was fighting the garrote around his throat, his eyes were calm, a stark contrast to the wild gleam in Penny's normally sedate brown eyes.

"Don't just let her kill you, stupid!" Mel cried, watery blood dripping from the corners of her mouth.

"Free – " He had to stop to get a breath. "Freewill."

Mel stilled. "This is ri-friggin-diculous," she said to herself, staggered by Wyatt's absolute lack of common sense. All he had to do was want it, and the struggle would be over. He'd be free in an instant. Instead, he was going to die to prove, what, that the world was an unfair place because it gave the advantage to evil?

Screw that. She'd blow him up first; there was a least a good chance that he'd reform.


	12. Evil of This Time 5

**Recalled to Life**

**Evil of This Time**

**2025**

"'I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.'"

Book III; Chapter XV of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

—The Prophesy of the Charmed Ones—

Before she could even try to channel her fear and frustration into hate, a blur of brown fur vaulted toward Penny's dagger hand, ripping and tearing at it fiercely. As quickly has he'd came, Sydney bounded away from her wrath. Face registering shock, Penny put two fingers to the bloody surface wounds that littered the back of her hand. Inhaling suddenly, she threw back her head the way she did whenever she had a premonition.

She dropped the dagger, and the chain of the locket went limp. Wyatt released his glamour, coughing roughly. Penny's eyes filling rapidly, she pushed herself to her feet, moving to press herself into a corner. Her mournful apologies were muffled.

No longer held back, Mel dashed to Wyatt's side.

She started to speak, but Wyatt put up his hand to heal her still bleeding mouth. He then turned his healing touch to his own neck, another example of the near-limitlessness of his magic. As soon as he could visibly breath easy, she cracked him on the back of the head.

"Ow!" he complained.

"You moron."

Indignantly, he replied, "She snapped out of it, didn't she?"

"Yeah, thanks to my cat."

"Thanks to her premonition." Voice going soft, he asked, "What'd you see, Penny?"

Her back to them, she shakily whispered, "I felt my daughter burning next to me; I felt generations of her daughters sharing in her pain, never to find relief – I couldn't – Not Prudence. I couldn't curse her that way."

"You chose good," Wyatt congratulated her, standing and going to wrap his arms around her shoulders. "I'm proud of you."

Brushing off her knees as she got up, Mel broke in, "This is very sweet and everything, but right outside this door here is a warlock, in case you've forgotten in all the drama."

Penny raised her wet cheek from Wyatt's chest. Mel realized with a jolt that Penny and Melinda Warren weren't as identical as she'd thought. She was certain now that she was looking into the eyes of the Halliwell matriarch.

"Oh, daughter. I am sorry for what I said to you."

"You were evil, I'm over it. Just tell us how to separate you from Penn."

"You cannot. I have to finish this life, only then can I resume my next." She wiped her eyes and sniffled a few times to steel her resolve. "First, I must confront Matthew Tate. He should not be allowed to see me, but Captain Ramsdell will have invited him to gloat. He is another of my accusers. At my trial, he was determined to see my mother and daughter burn with me. Fortunately, Matthew's testimony was barely enough to convict me alone." She shook her head sadly. "I wanted for them to already be in hiding. My mother swore she would take Prudence away before I…before my execution – but not a moment sooner. Between her stubbornness, Matthew's power-hunger, and Captain Ramsdell's conviction, I greatly fear for them."

"Ramsdell's probably out there with Tate right now. We can keep an eye on him, easy," Wyatt said. "We'll just go invisible again. We won't let anything happen to Charlotte or Prudence. That's a promise."

Smiling up at him, Melinda Warren rested a hand on his cheek. "I believe that you were meant to be here."

"You should thank Mel. She figured out what was going on."

"Prudence Melinda." Her namesake's smile fairly radiated love and goodness. "A true and worthy Warren witch. Thank you."

"Thank the cat while you're at it." Mel pointed over her shoulder at the empty wooden bucket Sydney had hidden behind.

While Melinda Warren fetched her locket, Wyatt began to repeat the non-existence haiku again. Just as he got to the last line, Mel waved her hands to unfreeze the men outside. Wyatt finished the spell and identical shudders ran through Wyatt and Mel. They were now as useless as they were invisible.

The cell door opened. A gangly, straw-haired young man entered the cell first, followed by a harsh-looking middle-aged man with a dark red moustache. Melinda Warren's instant trepidation meant this must be Ramsdell. Mel peered out into the hallway before the young jailor shut them in. No sign of Tate.

Behind Ramsdell's back, the jailor flashed a small, reassuring smile. A double agent, Mel presumed, perhaps even a male witch.

"Mr. Sheppard, if you'll please," Ramsdell said to the jailor, who moved behind Melinda Warren and gently held her wrists behind her back.

In contrast, Ramsdell reached out suddenly to jerk Melinda Warren's chin forward. "Have you changed your stubborn mind, witch? My offer still stands. For your testimony against others of your kind, I promise you a kinder sentence."

She curled her lip at him. "Only a monster like you, Captain, would consider hanging by the neck a kinder sentence."

"Oh, make no mistake. Hanging is far kinder than what the executioner has planned for you. But no matter. I will personally see to the deaths of every Godforsaken sorceress in this New World."

Melinda Warren's head jerked back, nearly crashing into Sheppard's, and startled Ramsdell into stepping away. When she tilted her head forward again, she was grinning fiercely. "You may kill me, but you cannot kill my kind. I vow that with each generation, Warren witches will grow stronger, culminating in the arrival of three sisters. These three sisters will be the most powerful witches the world has ever known. They will destroy all kinds of evil," she spat, finishing, "And shall be called the Charmed Ones."

Mel had the abrupt urge to sit down. That was it. She'd just witnessed the prophesy of the Charmed Ones – her mother's birthright and the foundation of her own magical heritage.

Wyatt put it best: "Holy shit."

Sneering, Ramsdell slapped Melinda Warren across the face. She stayed upright only because Sheppard held her steady. Mel had to bite her tongue to keep from saying the counter-spell and presenting the evil bastard with the fruits of that prophesy via a petrified set of lungs.

"So you've confessed! You heard her, Mr. Sheppard, she promised us generations of witches. It is just how I have said – It is an impurity in the blood and must be stamped out without mercy! Your daughter will burn, witch. I will see to it."

His threat was met with a serene smile. "Not while I have beloved family and friends who will stand by me even as I go to my death. They are prepared to assure my legacy."

Sheppard straightened, as if he were about to make a stand, but Melinda Warren discreetly held him back.

"We shall see." With that and nothing more, Ramsdell turned and stalked out of the cell.

"Stay with Melinda," Wyatt ordered. "I'll find Charlotte and Prudence."

"She can handle Tate on her own – " Her brother was already gone. Lamely, she finished, "Seeing as she already has."

What Mel wanted was to go after Ramsdell, a desire she shared with young Mr. Sheppard. Nodding jerkily at Melinda Warren, he exited stiffly. He shut and locked the cell behind him.

Mel looked toward Sydney. "'Stay with Melinda,'" she delegated mock-sternly, proceeding directly through the cell door.

The only other person in the dank hallway was Tate. Mel pressed against the wall to avoid passing through him. "Hope you're claustrophobic," she snarked, gladly leaving him to his fate.

At the top of the stairs, Sheppard stood mopping his brow. As Mel got closer, she could hear voices through the thick wooden door he was listening at.

"…confession! You must allow me a contingent of men – "

"Do not presume, Captain Ramsdell, to tell me what I 'must' do."

"My lord, with all due respect – " Ramsdell choked a bit on the words – "My son…"

"A tragic loss, Captain, truly, but this is a hard land. Disease and – "

"No. No, not disease – Murder! Poisoned, by witches, for revenge upon me – Charlotte Warren! I saw her. I saw her leaning over his bed – "

"Yet, at the very same night, two of my very own soldiers will testify to seeing her sleeping in front of Elizabeth Wallace's cell. You were a fine commander, but the death of your son – "

"Proves that we are not safe in our own homes. My lord, for the sake of Salem – "

"I assure you that the safety of this village is my sole concern. As such, I will not give free reign to a madman bent on terrorizing it!"

Sheppard jumped back as the door flung open and an older man in formal regalia stomped out. Ramsdell remained inside, his moustache quivering under the force of his silent rage.

"Give me strength," Sheppard murmured. He hastened into the room. "Captain!"

Ramsdell jerked his head up, a peculiar look in his eyes. Sheppard pistol-whipped him, catching him right in the jaw. Ramsdell went down like a sack of flour.

"Oh, hell yes," Mel said, stepping toward them. The tears she'd seen on Ramsdell's face didn't make her feel even the slightest bit sorry for him.

Sheppard stood over Ramsdell, laughing in breathless amazement. He quickly shut the door and drew out a large knife.

Mel's eyebrows shot up. She was going to have to save Ramsdell's worthless life, just like they'd technically saved Tate's. This whole thing was all kinds of messed up. She couldn't believe there was anyone left in the world that still believed in pure good and evil, innocents and villains.

"Captain, you will never hurt any of my kind again. I will stop you right here," Sheppard vowed, reaching deep into the pocket of his breeches and producing –

"An apple?"

While Mel gaped, Sheppard used the knife to cut the apple in two and placed the slices on either end of Ramsdell's prone form. With shaking hands, he held up a small piece of parchment.

"Power of the pentagon,

Punish most grievous wrong.

Power of the witch's cry,

Remove this man, by and by."

Ramsdell disappeared – no vortexes, no flashing lights, no poof, just gone – and Sheppard was out the door.

"Um, 'remove this man?'" Mel asked. "Where the hell did he go?"

The empty room had no answer. Whatever. So not her problem.


	13. Evil of This Time 6

**Recalled to Life**

**Evil of This Time**

**2025**

"'I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.'"

Book III; Chapter XV of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

—Magic, Purely Borne—

Mel stuck her head into the dimly lit hallway just in time to see Melinda Warren being manhandled up the stairs. Sydney trotted along behind the group. Mel solemnly fell in step.

Outside the jail, a large group of townspeople were gathering, some yelling, some hefting stones and rotten food. The violence twisting their faces made Mel feel like she was opposite a horde of demons. Melinda Warren was impassive in the face of the angry crowd.

Mel desperately wanted her to come to her senses and fight back. She was a witch – a powerful one. There were dozens of ways she could save herself and her daughter. But instead, she, like Wyatt, had come up with the most uncomplicated, altruistic solution possible and was not about to budge.

Maybe that's why Mel couldn't ever be truly good; she was too selfish. Her mom's disapproving voice echoed in her mind: "You always want to have your cake and eat it, too." Whenever she'd said that, Mel had always wanted to shoot back, "Well, what the hell's the point of having cake in the first place if you're not going to eat it? That's plain stupid." Were you supposed to have the cake just long enough to really be salivating for the taste, and then set it down on the counter for someone else to eat? Was that the supposed moral of that little saying? Was that the fundamental nature of good?

Melinda Warren smiled wispily. Tracking her small wave, she was surprised to see Wyatt, his clothing glamoured to resemble Tate's, holding in his arms a blond girl who couldn't have been more than ten. Tears streaked down her pale face, the girl waved back at Melinda Warren solemnly. Equally somber, an older woman with rusted iron hair stood next to Wyatt, clasping a bundle of wildflowers in her hands. They might have been trembling but she was too far away to tell.

For Mel, it was an unsettling jolt to see them – Prudence Warren, very nearly a sacrificial lamb, and Charlotte Warren, the ultimate matriarch – calmly, silently saying their last goodbyes to Melinda Warren, who had, in her short lifetime, been both a daughter and a mother. She'd also been a woman who'd loved the wrong man and, not for being a witch, but for that alone, she would die.

Mel knew from U.S. history that no one had been able to accurately account for the hysteria behind the Salem witch trials; that extreme paranoia that had led to the deaths of two dozen women and men, most of whom were not even witches. Confronted with the reality of it gave her no further insight into its psychological causes. All she saw was a throng of people, transfixed by the idea that the death of an innocent young woman would bring righteousness and prosperity back into their lives.

The sole voice of semi-reason was Lord Gentry's. He raised his hands high over his head, and the noise from crowd died down to a low murmur. Clearly, he held some position of great authority in the town. He spoke up, his words booming through the still, morning air. "By Court authority, under the rule of William and Mary, by the Grace of God, King and Queen of England, France, and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith, etcetera, this woman has been convicted of witchcraft, a crime against us all. Nevertheless, she is a citizen of the Crown and will, therefore, go to her death with dignity, befitting one representative of our King and Queen. Should anyone choose to take it upon himself or herself to lessen the seemliness of our laws, they will have to answer to the Court."

Threat sufficiently made, Lord Gentry started off. Melinda Warren tore her gaze from her family and fell in line directly behind him, two jailors holding onto her elbows. The crowd followed, many begrudgingly dropping whatever objects they'd had intended to throw. Mel allowed people to pass through her as she watched Wyatt comfort Prudence, now crying in earnest.

Scowling to stave off potential tears of her own, she ducked down behind a nearby cart and poked her head over the side.

Wyatt had set Prudence down and was hugging Charlotte, who handed him the bundle of flowers and said, "You've restored my hope in the future. Thank you."

Wyatt knelt in front of Prudence, giving her a hug. "You stay good," he said, and she nodded tearfully. She let her grandmother lead her away – hopefully far away and out of town.

He turned and made direct eye contact with Mel, through the spell. A familiar shudder went through her. She was visible again, and Wyatt hadn't even had to say a word out loud.

Most people out of sight, he walked directly up to her, an uncharacteristic frown on his face. "I thought you would stay with Melinda Warren."

"I went after Ramsdell. We don't have to worry about him anymore. Sheppard took care of him."

"But I told you not to leave Penny," Wyatt pressed.

Mel bristled, bending down to pick up Sydney. "Well, I figured that, since she couldn't perceive I existed, I served no purpose."

Wyatt glamoured her period dress. "Well, now she can see you, so let's go."

The back of Mel's throat lurched. "We're really going to watch her die?"

Wyatt handed her half of Charlotte Warren's bundle of flowers. "Yes."

Outside of town, the terrain was rocky and uneven, rising in elevation the closer they came to Melinda Warren's place of execution. Wyatt didn't hesitate to push through the mob, holding out his hand behind him for Mel to grab. In the crook of her arm, Sydney rumbled discontentedly, not enjoying being squished against so many hostile bodies. Mel was more used to the tight squeeze; in fact, if she closed her eyes she could imagine that this was three Friday nights ago, when she and Penny had snuck into P3 with Derek and Jared.

But that was another life, one that made a certain amount of sense. Elbowing their way to the front of the crowd and seeing Melinda Warren, not fifteen feet in front of them, tied against a stake, surrounded by a pile of wood that nearly reached her waist, and knowing that she was going to be set ablaze until she reached her slow and painful death – this life made no sense.

A reverend dressed in black robes stood tall on a rock that jutted up from the ground. As he read from the Bible, which lay flat on his palm, two men lit the wood surrounding Melinda Warren. At the sight of the first licks of flame, Melinda Warren lost her expression of serenity.

Unable to muster the self-control to keep eye contact with her the way Wyatt could, Mel turned a sharp gaze on her namesake's collective murderers. They were so devout, looking upon this horrific evil with condemnatory eyes, Christian cries for punishment and retribution justifying their bloodlust.

For an exhilarating, terrifying moment, Melinda Warren's first gasps of pain assaulting her ears, Mel disengaged from her humanity. A white-hot rage flared in the pit of her stomach, melding and crystallizing two dangerous thoughts – "it's us against them" and "some people deserve to die" – into one impulse: strike back.

She didn't. Mel contained the urge, rode out the nausea, because it was so glaringly obvious that her hate and their hate shared the common denominator of fear. The exploitation of "the other," this was how evil – whether it be corporeal or intangible – got the better of freewill.

One of Sydney's claws snagged Mel's forearm, and the volume and clarity of the world around her increased. The low, murmured chant that she had unknowingly been tuning out became audible.

Bonneted women to Mel's immediate left, at least four of them, stood with chins down in what looked like prayer, limp bouquets of flowers clenched in white and shaking hands, their lips barely moving as, continuously, they formed two words:

"Blessed be."

A wind picked up, carrying with it the scent of wildflowers. Throat tense, she raised her eyes to Melinda Warren's twisted, tear-streaked face. The wind was pushing the smoke into her face, making her cough violently.

She turned her head to the right. Wyatt's jaw ticked, his watery, unblinking gaze ever focused on his matriarch. A strong wind seemed to be rising directly from the flimsy bundle in his hands. His wordless spell pushed the smoke forward, and Melinda Warren ceased writhing against her restraints. The fear of burning alive alleviated, she had resigned herself to suffocation.

Knowing it made her that much weaker than her brother and her cousin, Mel closed her eyes as she took up the mantra:

"Blessed be.

Blessed be.

Blessed be."

She blocked out everything except for those powerful words. Emotion became magic, purely borne, and, as Melinda Warren died, the winds pushed it back upon her. She should have felt cleansed by the reciprocation, but instead she felt washed-out and tremulous.

Pivoting on her heel, she began to push through the mob. Sydney resisted, clawing her again. She allowed him to jump from her arms and continued her quest for fresh air. As she staggered back down the path toward the town, she resolved that never again would she stand idly by while any member of her family went to her or his death – no matter how honorable or how necessary.

Mel waited for Wyatt in the woods, piece of chalk in hand. The second she caught sight of his orbs, she jumped to her feet to begin drawing a triquetra on the uneven bark of the large tree she'd been resting her back against. She paused to let the glow of her glamour fade then continued chalking in the lines.

"Are you okay?" Wyatt asked hesitantly. When she didn't respond, he said, "Mel, I am so, so sorry for making you go there. I should have respected – "

"It was good that we helped. I'm not mad at you." An honest reply, if terse.

Mel stepped back from the finished triquetra so that she and Wyatt were bicep to shoulder. Sydney stared up at her from Wyatt's arms, his head, of course, titled in favor of the blue-eyed side. With a slight curl of her lip, she looked away. A lot of things she, in the past, had merely suspected had now become obvious to her.

Massaging her tired eyes, she suggested, "Let's go back to a time after Chris and Bianca have saved Penny."

"Do you want to talk first?" Wyatt asked that question as he took out the spell from his pocket. He obviously already knew she'd answer in the negative, but for some reason he felt obligated to ask anyway.

"We took care of the situation." She gestured toward the triquetra, indicating that she wanted to go home.

They said the spell together, opening the multicolored portal. Before she could make a break for it, Wyatt stopped her by placing one hand on her shoulder.

"I know – we both know – this doesn't feel like much of a victory. Everything – the whole universal setup – it's unfair, it gives the advantage to evil. But, I promise you, someday we're going to change that." There was conviction in his tone, utter sincerity.

Mel gave him a slight smile and nod.

Motioning Wyatt forward, she let him go through the portal first, Sydney in tow. Now that that vague eventual greater good seemed a little more comprehensible, her stride was as purposeful as it had once been in the days of her youth, back when she'd had it in her to trust with blind faith. That ability had been lost to her, but in its place was a capacity for discernment.

Oh, yes, she was going to have a long talk with Cole very soon. And, for once, there would be no half-truths and there would be no manipulation.

They'd be partners, or they wouldn't be anything at all.


	14. A Man Apart 1

**Recalled to Life**

**A Man Apart**

**2025**

"Still, the Doctor walked among the terrors with a steady head. No man better known than he, in Paris at that day; no man in a stranger situation. Silent, humane, indispensable in hospital and prison, using his art equally among assassins and victims, he was a man apart. In the exercise of his skill, the appearance and the story of the Bastille Captive removed him from all other men. He was not suspected or brought in question, any more than if he had indeed been recalled to life some eighteen years before, or were a Spirit moving among mortals."

Book III; Chapter IV of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

—A Genuine Thank You—

Emerged from the triquetra vortex, Mel stepped around Wyatt. So relieved was she to see Penny seated on the attic's couch, short-cropped brown hair and tanning-bed browned skin perfectly intact, she'd actually begun to smile before realizing that her cousin's straight-backed posture indicated all was not well that had seemingly ended well.

Penny stiffly rose to stand. "Chris took Bianca to their apartment. They took the rest of your potion with them, even though I don't think Bianca'll be needing it anymore."

Confusion skittered across Mel's face.

"She had to vanquish her mother and the rest of her coven – to save me," Penny revealed quietly, her watery gaze shifting from Mel to Wyatt. Her expression asked, How could any of this have been allowed to happen?

Mel raised her eyes to Wyatt. He must have thought she was seeking comfort, because he dropped Sydney abruptly to pull her into a hug. Accepting it, she lifted her arm for Penny to join them, resting a hand on her cousin's slim back.

The three stood in silent mourning, Mel increasingly aware of the enormity of their places in the greater scheme of things. They mattered, and suffering was the price of significance. Some had already paid it – Penny and Bianca today, Chris by holding onto memories of a bygone future, her father by trading his powers for his family, the Charmed Ones by fighting through years of sacrifice. How would Wyatt pay? How would she?

Jarringly, Wyatt's cell blared a classic refrain from Queens of the Stone Age. "It's Verity," Wyatt said regretfully. Apparently, the ringtone served to remind him that he had a secret. Depressing. They broke apart, Wyatt pulling his phone out of his sweats so he could send Verity to voicemail.

Rubbing her elbows, Mel told him, "You can't blow her off twice in one day."

He looked directly at Penny. "If you need anything – "

"I just need some time alone to think." Penny smiled weakly. "So go."

Wyatt's orbs dissipated, leaving Mel to stare down at the floorboards. "I probably have to go to work soon, too." She toed a knot in the wood, wondering if she should offer to call in sick.

Penny blew out a long breath. "I guess we all have to just…move on with our day," she declared.

"Seems kind of par for the course," Mel responded, the glibness in her tone shaky. "Get up, get dressed, try to destroy the Warren line, get burned at the stake, get some lunch, musical work day for the rest of the afternoon – you're set."

"Yep," Penny agreed, too brightly.

Mel looked at her sharply, wondering how close she was to tears. Pretty close. "Penn, I can call for Aunt Paige. She'll have your mom here like that."

"No. Thanks, but…She'll be mad at me for not telling her right away, but I really do think I need to be alone. I haven't been totally myself in a long time."

"Are you sure?" Mel wanted badly to actually do something for Penny, since it felt like she'd spent the greater part of the morning standing around helplessly, resenting her.

"You'd want to be alone."

"Yeah, but that's me, I'm…" What? A completely fucked up person incapable of any sort of empathy? "…me."

"And I'm me, too, now – thanks to you. Not even my sisters noticed I was under a spell. I didn't even realize it until it took me completely." Penny wearily sat back down on the edge of the couch.

"Well, you know how I like to think the worst of people."

"That's not true. Could you accept a genuine thank you, please? I'd appreciate it."

She didn't deserve one – she'd been just as oblivious as anybody else – but, "Sure."

"Thank you," Penny said to Mel.

"You're welcome."

"There." She smacked her thighs decisively. "Now I'm dismissing you to go change for work."

Mel looked down at her decade-old t-shirt and ripped jeans. "Why would I bother doing that?"

Penny sighed in feint mock pity. "Oh, Melinda. I hope I'm not the one who has to break this to you for the first time – Lawyers have to dress up for work. Like, in dress pants, and, I'm not kidding, some of them even wear skirts."

"I'm just messing with you." Mel motioned Penny to lead the way out of the attic. It was good for both of them to get away. "You know, I can dress to intimidate, no problem. In fifteen years, when I convince you to take your Wicca wonder emporium corporate, you'll be asking for wardrobe pointers from me."

Penny gave a little laugh, opening Mel's bedroom. "I'm not that ambitious. Not like your family. Lawyer, doctor, professor. Even my sisters – Pheona wants to travel the world helping people fall in love, and Pierce is well on her way to discovering the philosophic truth behind the meaning of life…Tricia's going protect and serve; Tia's going to reverse global warming; Juni already knows he's going to be a whitelighter. Me, I just want to open a little Wicca shop and help your mom out on the side."

Mel swallowed thickly. The far-looking serenity on Penny's face was entirely reminiscent of Melinda Warren's expression when she prophesized the Charmed Ones.

"All I want out of the future is for none of us ever to lose touch. My kids are going play with your kids, and they'll call me Aunt Penny, and their kids, too…" She stopped, smiling lightly. "I expect to see at least three generations out of all of you before I kick it."

In spite of the cloyingness of Penny's parochial aspirations – aspirations, judging from oft-retold stories, the original Penny Halliwell sure as hell hadn't shared – Mel was moved. Her own instinct was to keep the family alive; Penny's to keep them together. After seeing how, in her past life, she'd had to give up her daughter, there could be no faulting her for valuing family unity.

"You're judging me," Penny observed.

Mel started moving hangers in her closet. "I was just thinking – "

"Wait, are we feeling this print skirt today? It's super cute."

But not very intimidating. She needed armor today, so she pulled out the black pantsuit she'd worn for the mock trial she'd won during her Berkeley summer class. "How about pinstripes?"

"Okay, but no jacket and you're wearing your green silk blouse with it. This isn't my funeral."

"Dark," Mel commented, more out of surprise than anything. But she accepted the blouse and the ballerina flats.

While she was changing, Penny asked, "So what were you thinking? When you were judging me."

"I was imagining you having thirteen children."

Penny grinned, looking relieved. "No. No, I think three is the perfect number." She patted her nearly concave stomach. "I wouldn't want to ruin my figure. I plan on being a MILF."

"Noble."

"In all things."

Shifting her weight, Mel nodded at Penny's wrist. "Could you tell me the time?"

She slid the watch face toward her. "Ten to eleven. When do you have to work?"

"Eleven," Mel responded derisively, then shrugged. "I'm screwed. It's a twenty-minute drive if I take a taxi. Damn space-time continuum."

Penny held out her hand. "Is there a janitor's closet I can drop you off inside?"

"Nah, you look pretty drained. It's not a big deal if I'm late. They love me there. You just…do whatever you need to do."

In a no-nonsense tone, Penny replied, "Prudence Melinda. Less than an hour ago every good deed any member of our family line has ever done would have been blotted out by evil if it hadn't been for you. I'm positive I can muster up the strength to take you across town, because I definitely owe you."

"Not really. I didn't want to be a Phoenix, and just ask Chris how messed up the world would be if Wyatt was raised evil. Whatever, though. If you want to take me to work, I'm not gonna argue."

"I will take you to work," she said, standing, "Only, I wish you'd stop playing the martyr. It's unbecoming."

"I'm not, I just – " Mel pursed her lips together. Penny's nagging sounded so much like her usual self that she had forgotten to be sympathetic. "I need to learn to except a thank you," she amended.

Penny was appeased.

Mel spent the afternoon incensed, not at Penny but at Cole. Mel was certain she could accept a thank you, and she would, with satisfaction, if one was actually deserved. Since she'd been blindly following orders, Penny thinking that she'd taken the initiative to save the Warren line was utter bullshit.

Now, if she'd had a share in monitoring for developing prophesies or been given full disclosure as to the events that were to transpire, well, that would be a different scenario. Had Cole treated her as a partner instead of a cheap lackey, Mel would've been able to accept Penny's praise at full value.

"Ugh," Mel let out as she pushed an enormous chronicle of California state Supreme Court rulings into place. Along with frustration, that single syllable was brimming with disgust. The sad truth was that she badly wanted recognition for her role as family savior. It justified the place she'd made for herself one step outside the circle. She'd actually enjoyed Chris's skepticism, because she knew she'd be able to emphatically prove him wrong.

Yet, it occurred to her, a weight sinking into her stomach, Penny's misplaced gratitude aside, no one could really be appreciative of how the morning's events had transpired. Necessary or not, Penny had been burned at the stake and Bianca had had to vanquish her own mother. Not exactly a clean-cut win for the good guys. But, then, how could it be with such an architect behind it?

So, what did you leave me with, Cole? she asked herself, pushing the heavy shelving cart into the next row. Hollow praise for suspecting the absolute worst of the Princess, terrible last-minute timing, half-cocked planning, unshakable anger and grief at seeing Melinda Warren's frightened eyes as the flames spread nearer, the knowledge that the only thing she'd remotely done right and of her own volition was to involve Wyatt and Chris, and an upcoming million-lie marathon once Mom and the Aunts heard the story.

"Bastard," she snarled lowly, forcefully jamming a slim volume into an already tight shelf.

"Hon? Are you all right?"

Instantly drawing her face into a look of wide-eyed embarrassment, Mel placed the book she was abusing back on her cart and turned to face her supervisor, a short, dark-haired woman who laughed too loudly and insisted on taking her out to lunch once a week.

"I am so sorry, Laurie, I shouldn't have said that out loud. The books just hate me today. They're staging a rebellion."

Laurie threw back her head with a staccato, "Ha! I know what you mean, I've heard them plotting before. Little whispers, totally creepy. But, hey, you've been at it non-stop since you got here. Why don't you go sit up at the resource desk, and you can dazzle the patrons with your encyclopedic knowledge of the California legal system."

"Sure," Mel grinned, dryly thinking, Yet another acclamation that rightly belongs to Cole.

Dwelling on that, however, would not do her a bit of good, so instead she engaged Laurie in surface level conversation about how scary and-or exciting it was to think she'd be headed off to college in just a few short months. Mel listened attentively as Laurie reminisced about her own high school and college days, playing the perfect little pet so well that she didn't have to shelve another book all day.

At five minutes to four, Mel was already outside the building, taking the stairs down to the sidewalk two at a time. One hand in her pocket, she gathered the change there, just enough for a bus ride home. Her frustration at not being born with the ability to magically transport herself anywhere she pleased had not dimmed with age.

But at least she was almost certain she could use Sydney to confront Cole on her own terms, something she should have done years ago. If the son of a bitch thought she was nothing more than another pawn he could slide around on his chessboard –

"Halliwell."

Mel snapped her attention to the origin of the greeting, reflexively baring her teeth at the pinkie wave the black-clad demon offered her with a smile.


	15. A Man Apart 2

**Recalled to Life**

**A Man Apart**

**2025**

"Still, the Doctor walked among the terrors with a steady head. No man better known than he, in Paris at that day; no man in a stranger situation. Silent, humane, indispensable in hospital and prison, using his art equally among assassins and victims, he was a man apart. In the exercise of his skill, the appearance and the story of the Bastille Captive removed him from all other men. He was not suspected or brought in question, any more than if he had indeed been recalled to life some eighteen years before, or were a Spirit moving among mortals."

Book III; Chapter IV of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

—Witches Are Human—

She stepped out of the flow of pedestrian traffic, but stopped short of approaching him. Sighing, he pushed himself out of his casual lean against the library's brick corner and strolled out of the shadows.

The devil has to be handsome to get his way, Mel reflected, simultaneously running down a list of getaway options as she pointedly waited for Taelos to explain his presence.

"I've been sent to collect the Architect's effects." That failed to get even the slightest rise out her, so he continued briskly. "Turner's waiting for you in the Realm. You've been summoned by Cuius Aureus."

Her internal reaction was, "What the – who the hell?" Her outward reaction was to coolly echo, "Cuius Aureus."

"That's right, Alice. I'm to take you through the rabbit hole to meet the Queen of Hearts." Almost to himself, he added, "Or it's off with my head."

Mel let out a mock gasp. "Oh, jeepers! Your life is at stake?" She dropped her hand from her mouth and presented him with her back.

"Oy," he complained, trailing at her heels. "Halliwell, this isn't something you can walk away from clean – "

"I don't answer to Cuius Aureus, and I certainly don't owe you any favors. So fuck the hell off."

When Taelos clamped a hand on her bicep, she very nearly dropped him flat, teeming sidewalk of witnesses or no, but his words made her pause.

"That's where you're wrong, dead wrong. Turner's obviously been feeding you a load of bollocks if you don't think he answers to Her. Everyone is expendable to Cuius Aureus, even the Architect." His upper lip curled in a sneer. "And even the Means."

Mel twisted out of his grasp. "I don't scare that easily. I'm the daughter of a Charmed One, remember?"

"Oh, I remember, and so does she. Cuius Aureus has a very long memory. She remembers being revered in this dimension as the Goddess made flesh. What's more, She remembers who took that all away from her. Oh yes, She remembers that brother of yours. She remembers him very well. As I understand it, you want to keep him alive. And you want to keep Turner alive, and I imagine you'll be wanting to keep yourself alive, much like I want to keep myself alive, so let's not keep Her waiting."

Mel's mind shot past skepticism, panic, and anger to settle on resolve. "Fine."

"Fine," he sneered. "You need to prepare a token."

"What happened to not keeping the god-queen waiting?"

Taelos narrowed his dark eyes at her flippant tone, but said, "Time works differently in the Realm. But she'll know if you meant to dawdle."

"Does she see me when I'm sleeping and know when I'm awake?"

Taelos was clearly incensed. "No, this dimension is dark to her. But she does read minds."

Mel dug her fingernails into her palm. Cole had conditioned her from a young age to throw off the thought gleaning that came naturally to nearly half her family, but, like premonitions, there was no way she could block full-on telepathy.

"What does that mean? What if I'm standing in front of her thinking, God, what a hag – is she going to know and take offense enough to kill me?"

"What she picks up on are definite intentions. If you stood in front of her with a vanquishing spell in mind and an exit strategy planned out, she would know, and then she would kill you. So I don't recommend it."

"Sounds like a real peach. Definitely deserving of my 'token.'"

"Not yours. The Heir's."

Obsessed with Wyatt, obviously. Points for pandimensionality, though, At least that was new.

"Whatever. We'll walk a couple blocks, and you can take me home." Mel turned to go, expecting him to follow.

"An invitation to the famed Halliwell Manor. What demon could resist?" He fell into step beside her, and pointed his thumb at the library. "So, you work back there? Didn't realize the most powerful family in good magic was so hard up. Maybe I'll take up a collection for you."

In a flat tone, she replied, "That's the law library. I'm going to be a lawyer."

"I thought you were going to be Supreme Empress of this post-resurgent dimension."

What? "Prior to that."

Sweeping his coat back to dodge a bleary-eyed, ragged old man, Taelos curled his lip. "Disgusting. I can't understand how you witches live like this. One ankle shackled to the human world, one toe in the magical world."

"Witches are human."

"You know what I mean. Look you. You've got us going out of our way so some useless humans don't get a look at magic and go out of their tiny little brains."

"The alternative is what? The Underworld? Eau de sulfur and interior design by brimstone? Only demons could be content with scraping out an eternity there."

"That's why the Realm's so exclusive. Keeps the bottom feeders from pouring in and good magic out of our business."

"Yeah, sure. So how'd you get in?"

There was more than a hint of boasting in his voice when he answered, "I was born there."

"Oh, right. And I'm sure your lovely mother read her little demon-spawn Alice in Wonderland every night before beddy-bye."

"I've spent time in the human world." More forcefully he said, "And there aren't just demons in the Realm. There are witches, too. We tolerate them, so long as they've not got any illusions of good or evil. Magic holds mastery over the humans who've fallen into our world. They're our slaves," Taelos barked, startling a businesswoman with a cell phone glued to her ear.

She composed herself, giving Taelos a dirty look as she continued on by, telling the person on the other end of the call, "I cannot stand these kids. They think that they are just so entitled."

Mel grabbed Taelos's wrist before he could do any damage. "Okay, enough," she hissed. "No more contact with humans, no more talking. I'm not in the mood for chitchat. You didn't exactly endear yourself to me with those shots to the ribs."

"At the time, I thought you were the enemy."

"At the time, I was twelve."

"I'm evil."

"I'm not interested. Not in your life, not in your opinions on any subject. Save it." She shoved him into an alley. "You can't take us directly inside. No one should be home, but at my house you never know. So listen carefully."

"You're a right pushy bitch, you know that?" His expression was one of wounded aggravation.

"Oh grow a pair. Now, the Manor has a basement…but Wyatt might be working out. Okay, the basement has a crawlspace that leads to a hidden room. My mom was actually a bootlegger in a past life – " She stopped to glare at Taelos, who was stifling a yawn.

It was true that she was babbling, something she normally wasn't prone to doing. She hadn't realized how nervous she was. And being nervous pissed her off.

"Like you said, I'm going to be your Supreme Empress. Show some damn respect, underling, and do as I say." She held out her hand.

He clamped his fingers tightly around the nape of her neck, squiggling them into the narrow, dusty room she used to store her potions ingredients. She was actually eye-to-eye with a row of them, which was odd since she usually needed a ladder –

"Hey!" she had time to yelp before dropping abruptly.

She landed solidly with her weight on her ankles, and pitched forward onto her knees and elbows. Wincing, she rolled back on her heels to warily watch him descend gracefully onto the dirt floor. His eyes were completely blackened over.

"Enough. Do you even listen to yourself? You talk, talk, talk, talk, talk – You'd be a hell of a lot more intimidating if you'd just shut up."

Mel puffed out a laugh. That was exactly why she ran her mouth so much these days. Silence drew suspicion.

Giving no physical indication, she froze Taelos's skeleton and vocal cords and proceeded to take her sweet time getting to her feet. Without the movement of his jaw, his lips could only make sloppy approximations of what she assumed was supposed to be profanity.

She shrugged, wiping off the front of her t-shirt. "Just helping you to take your own advice. Try not to breathe too heavily. Your ribs can't expand with your lungs." She pinkie waved at him. "Back in a few."

The crawlspace was large enough to walk in if she hunched. Mel peered through grate to make sure the basement was empty, and then swung it open.

Voices carried through the open ground level window. Gramps, it sounded like, from the garage, asking a question about lamp oil. Her dad answering.

Damn. If he was back, then Mom was back. And if they were talking candles, that meant big spell, which in turn meant a full house of witches.

Nothing to do but to take her chances. Mel went lightly up the basement stairs and listened at the door. The kitchen was clear, but there were footsteps above her head. Lots of footsteps.

Double damn.

She crept into the hallway. Orbs in the entranceway had her flattening herself against the wall. If she was seen there was no way she could get out of family magic time.

Aunt Paige peered into the unoccupied living room, her line of sight very close to where Mel was hiding. "Huh." She went to the stairs, calling up, "Need anything from down here?"

"No," Mom called back. "Did you find Melinda?" she asked, her voice getting stronger as she got nearer.

"They said I just missed her."

Mom came down the stairs. "Hopefully she'll come right home. Will you hand me my phone?"

Aunt Paige orbed it from the table. "Is everyone else up in the attic?"

"All the witches. Our men folk are supposed to be out in the garage looking for oil, but more likely they're marveling over the Roadster Leo's fixing up." Mom hit a button on her phone and pressed it to her ear.

"How could a séance compete?"

Mel's pocket began to vibrate quietly. She pressed her hand to it to further stifle the noise.

"It's not a séance exactly. Chris seems to think – and Leo thinks it's possible – that if Penny channels Melinda Warren, with our help she can then astral project her past life into this time, fully corporeal, while still being awake herself." Mom snapped shut her phone. "Melinda's not answering. I never know what that girl's up to."

Stifling a snort, Mel thought, Well, Mother, I'm currently creeping around my own home, hiding from you, so I can get up to Wyatt's room to steal some sort of a token from him, so I can answer a summons from an evil, mind-reading god-queen occupying another dimension, all at the beck and call of your ex-brother-in-law, whom you despised enough to vanquish once upon a time. Oh yeah, and I've got a demon in the basement.

In the time it took her to think that out, Mom and Aunt Paige were already back upstairs. She waited to hear the creak of the attic stairs before she gingerly but quickly darted to Wyatt's room. She opened and closed the door softly behind her.

Sydney was waiting for her in front of Wyatt's closet, precisely where she was planning to dig around.

"I suppose you know exactly what's going on," Mel muttered.

He mewled and got out of her way.

Token, token – wrinkled t-shirts and broken G.I. Joes weren't about to impress anyone. She needed something, well, Heir-like. Something…

Mel's hand closed around an object that sent a hum up and down her arm.

Something magical.

"Hello, Merlin," she said, holding the six-inch glass figurine close to her face. The old man blinked slowly and stretched, shaking off a decade of idleness. "Merlin, I seek your council."

The figurine bowed, his stiffness the only indication that Wyatt's childhood spell had faded even slightly. He'd enchanted the figurine, a gift from some magical creature or another, when he was going through his King Arthur phase, just after he was introduced to Excalibur. The figurine had been fun for a time, but Chris had proved himself a more dynamic Merlin on the playground.

Forgotten as he was, Mel had no doubt he still worked. "Wise Merlin, what say you? Will you make a suitable token?"

A bluish hue lit up the figurine, which was good enough for Mel to shut the closet door. She turned to her cat. "Anything else?"

Hopping up on Wyatt's dresser, Sydney nudged a small, opaque bottle with his nose. She followed him across the room, frowning as she bent toward the bottle. Waves of cool air rolled off of it in a thin fog.

"I'm supposed to drink this?"

Sydney purred.

"If you say so." Mel opened Wyatt's top drawer and fished out a sock.

Even with the barrier, she could barely stand to hold the bottle. Wrenching out the stopper, she slammed back the potion and let the glass clank against the floorboards.

Mel fell back onto Wyatt's bed, bringing the covers over her head. Nothing in her life could have prepared her for this cold.

Or this fear.

She was terrified. Suddenly and absolutely terrified of the potion's effect, of its existence – Did Cole have another provider? Had he always had one? Had he never needed her? Had just been checking up on her, only enough contact to keep her complacent, keep her loyal. Did he doubt her loyalty? She never had.

And there it was – the real fear. The fear of being wrong. Taelos had called her the Means. The Means of what? She didn't know.

All the clues were there. She could guess that the final resurgence had something to do with modeling this dimension after the Realm, where demons and witches had some kind of mutual understanding, and humans were slaves.

She could also guess this dimension was supposed fall to Cole and herself, Supreme Emperor and Empress, but if it was to be purely demonic, she wasn't to know, because no one believed that she was evil enough to knowingly betray her family or good magic. Her desire to become Supreme Empress would have to steam from, yes, want of power, but also from an urge to protect humans from suffering unnecessarily under the new order.

How would she and Cole prevent this? Did Cole even mean to?

She didn't know.

Mel let out a shaky laugh, and her body temperature leveled off. Of course. The not knowing was what was going to save her life – and Cole's life, and Wyatt's, and, through him, the greater good – because what Cuius Aureus read were definite intentions, and, even with her qualms, Mel had always had just one: to stand by Cole.

So she would.

Token in hand, she snuck out of Wyatt's room and into the hallway. The door to the attic was open, and a faint golden light emanated down.

Mel paused, thinking she should have a twinge of longing to be up there, safe with her family, basking in the love and gratitude of her namesake matriarch. None came.

Then she thought of her dad applying Band-Aids, tugging on her hair, cheering for her in the bleachers, rubbing her back and telling her until he was hoarse that it was just a nightmare. No warm fuzzies. She shivered. This was one hell of a potion.

While she was cautious, it was easy enough to get back inside her potions room.

Taelos was still there, suspended in motion. His eyes had gone back to normal, though they flared black again to show her that he was not pleased. She unfroze him, and he coughed and cursed and summoned an energy ball. She folded her arms across her chest, her stance wide.

He snuffed out his energy ball in his fist. "Lobotomy come with the doll?"

"There's a god-queen waiting to see me."


	16. A Man Apart 3

**Recalled to Life**

**A Man Apart**

**2025**

"Still, the Doctor walked among the terrors with a steady head. No man better known than he, in Paris at that day; no man in a stranger situation. Silent, humane, indispensable in hospital and prison, using his art equally among assassins and victims, he was a man apart. In the exercise of his skill, the appearance and the story of the Bastille Captive removed him from all other men. He was not suspected or brought in question, any more than if he had indeed been recalled to life some eighteen years before, or were a Spirit moving among mortals."

Book III; Chapter IV of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

—Her Sheer, Golden Power—

From 1329 Prescott Street, they shimmered into the center of a circle of crumbling stones lit up by a full moon.

As she slowly spun, a pulse of a power so ancient she could never hope to understand it coursed through her. "Guess I should've taken that Ancient Druid elective at Magic School."

Taelos, obviously savoring the power as well, let out a deep breath. "We're not donning cloaks just yet. Stonehenge is where anyone trying to get into the Realm is drawn to first." He crossed an x over the grass. "This is where they brought Her forth. All those petty immortals of popular imagination – Celtic, Roman, Greek, what have you – none of them compare to Cuius Aureus. Her sheer, golden power. She's…" Slowly, his eyes glazed over, opaque.

Without meaning to, Mel took a step forward. He didn't finish, but somehow she knew. "…Wicca." A modern word applied to an primeval concept, the definition of which Mel never truly understood until just now. Wicca. Craft. Magic. Power.

A gold-colored wind swooped around the perimeter of the circle, forming silhouettes of kneeling women, mouths opened to swallow the sky. Within the women, light exploded, a soundless bomb. The women stood, shining.

"That's what She does," Taelos whispered. "She gets inside of you, and She opens you up, and She makes you stronger than you ever thought possible. She's as old as good and evil – what's a demon but an angel born to crave that light? – But they're the ones who gave Her a name."

The women weren't shining anymore. They were burning. Boiling. Like the hot, blue blood under Mel's goosepimpled skin. Then a cooling shudder shivered through her, crumpling her fascination like gold leaf paper.

Cole's potion, saving her in another way. It kept her from catching the fire, and it kept her from dropping to her knees and hugging her splitting ears when the wailing started.

"Listen to them sing." The ecstasy on Taelos's sweaty face made her have to work to hide her revulsion.

The potential for that ecstasy was inside her, too. She could have easily been taken, converted. The true, insidious, nasty, unfairness of evil – that it could feel so much like good.

Gathering her resolve, Mel cut through the wind and the light: "I need to meet her."

"Yes," came Taelos's reply, as if from the depths of Hell. Then, suddenly, his fever broke. He cleared his throat and ran a trembling hand through his damp hair. "Yes. Yeah. Too right." Taelos grabbed her arm. "Get a move on."

Much like time travel, jumping dimensions lacked the trippy lightshow Mel always expected out of magical mystery tours. With nauseating speed, they shimmered from Stonehenge to the alter of Athena to the Egyptian desert to Easter Island to downtown Tokyo to a petrified forest to forest after forest after forest – When they finally stopped they both fell dizzily against a tree.

Mel put her head between her knees. She felt like she left her skin back with the pyramids. "Are we lost?" she demanded archly, squinting to see past the evening fog.

"Finally," Taelos confirmed, almost out of breath.

A slight woman wearing a blood red cloak emerged gracefully from the twilight. "And now you are found."

The sound of her voice threatened to make the feelings rush back. Mel committed murder solely for the purpose of satisfying that snake of a woman.

"Give us a minute, Elivetris. Our favorite Halliwell looks ready to vomit," Taelos said, doubled over himself.

"Pot to kettle," Mel muttered, which was a mistake. It made her think of Chris and just how in over her head that smug logician would think her now.

But she had Cole's potion. No emotion could overwhelm her. Not fear. Not even guilt.

Mel straightened and faced the mother of Belthazar square in the face.

"Why am I here?"

"What happened this morning raised the stakes. Halliwell magic is stronger and more desirable than ever."

"And Cuius Aureus took notice. Fine. I have her token, so let's get this over with."

From the depths of her hood, Elivetris searched Mel's eyes. "Feeling powerful, I see. You must be enjoying the benefits of my potion work. That is twice today."

The binding potion was the only other – But – "You would have to be – "

"I was born a witch. I rose again a Phoenix. A heady power, to be sure, but rage and chaos is oddly limiting. When I gave my mortal life to the Source, I was reborn a demon. And when I gave my immortal soul to Cuius Aureus, I was reborn a third time, into something even greater."

Elivetris, sweetly expressioned as ever, took Mel gently by the elbows, drawing her into an almost maternal embrace. "Today will be your second rebirth."

So that's what Cole wanted from her. Another piece of her innocence offered up as a sacrifice to the gray nebula of redemption at any cost.

Elivetris pulled back to seal the betrayal with a kiss on her forehead. "Here." She seemed to gather the fog around Mel and it settled into gleaming fabric. "Wrap yourself in silver, daughter, and let me present you."

Ugh. Daughter. And so much for dressing to impress. Mel secured her new cloak's hood and followed at Elivetris's side.

She was going to have to join the cult, wasn't she? Damn, damn, damn Cole. All his master schemes and lies of omission. He could have at least told her of Cuius Aureus's existence. She couldn't wait for the calming effects of the potion to wear out so she could be properly and royally pissed off at him. The bastard.

The sexy bastard.

Cuius Aureus's palace was solid gold and lavish to the point of excess, as Mel had come to expect. But there was Cole, standing on the bejeweled, elevated platform, looking for all the world like he owned the place. The air around him rippled like a desert mirage.

Above him, seated on a throne made of the softest gold she'd ever seen, was the idol herself. The gold and blue-skinned Cuius Aureus.

Her face was as regal and still as King Hatshepsut's on the body of the reclining sphinx. She was at once beautifully young and terribly ancient; Greco-Roman meets space alien. But the most striking thing – her power. It flowed freely about the room in an ebb and wave of perfumed gold.

Completely intoxicating. Mel felt like she could've frozen time itself just by throwing up her hands.

And how she wanted to. She wanted to freeze them all and run to Cole. To kiss him for giving her such a glorious feeling of power, of importance. And then to punch him in his smirking face for putting her through all this.

A peel of laughter, like the sound of gold coins slipping through grasping fingers, echoed through the silent chamber.

Cole, Elivetris, and Taelos looked at Mel sharply.

Definite intentions, all right.

Shoulders back, Elivetris announced in her most stately, pseudo-English voice, "Prudence Melinda Halliwell, witch, born of the Occupied Dimension, as requested, Your Worship."

With her scepter, Cuius Aureus struck the ground three times.

Out of the golden smoke, a girl cloaked in brown appeared in front of Mel. Head bowed, she held open an ornate jewelry box.

Awkwardly reaching into the arms of her own cloak, Mel fished around for her token. The box, she noted when she places Merlin inside, was the exact right size for the figurine.

Another tap, and the jewelry box girl smoked over to Cuius Aureus's side, where she knelt and presented the token.

Cuius Aureus did not pick up the figurine, merely stroked it with one elegantly long finger. The golden smoke itself seemed to hiss, "Arthur."

The figurine, the box, and the woman smoked out, seemingly in a fit of pique.

Like pure hatred and longing, painful in intensity, the thick golden smoke entered Mel's mouth and nose. She concentrated on breathing regularly. It burned through her lungs, seeped into her chest. Curled around her heart. It crawled back up her throat. All she saw was gold. All she thought was gold.

Panic loomed on the side of unconsciousness. She sunk her teeth into that clarity and held on with all she had.

The golden smoke was gone, and Mel was still standing.

Only now she was on the stairs just below Cuius Aureus's throne. Her gleaming eyes riveted through Mel. Her head was cocked like a predator.

"How satisfying," the god-queen declared in her thick, echoing voice. Her accent was a bit Scottish, a bit Germanic, like Beowulf read in Old English. Her tone was one of awe. "The internal struggle…To be so desired, so repellant…Yet so freely chosen. You have done well for yourself, Architect."

"You could have hardly expected less." Cole's, "your worshipfulness," was tacked on unconvincingly.

Cuius Aureus slanted her blue diamond glare toward him. "Do not flatter your ego. The fact that you had her from childhood renders your achievement far less impressive."

"Ah," Cole replied, making Mel's lip tick up mirthlessly.

She was stone-faced again when Cuius Aureus returned her attention. "Yes," she said distinctly. "We will have Him this way, of His own volition. Our previous Architect lead Us astray. The betrayal of friends, lovers, countrymen only strengthened His resolve. Thus, in this life, He must be His own betrayer. And for the sake of none but His Goddess. So it will be."

"So it will be," Mel was compelled to murmur along with Cole, Elivetris, and Taelos.

To Mel, Cuius Aureus inclined her head magnanimously. "Today you preformed Our will admirably. The Heir has questioned the nature of Good and Evil. You will continue to answer His questions. You will show Him what you have learned. You will be Our Means."

"So I will be," she answered, her trepidation obviously evident to Cuius Aureus.

"Take comfort, witch. For centuries We have waited. Meaning to force Our will, to take and then to break. We are allowing you the opportunity to bend Him gently to Our side. It is a great gift We are bestowing on you, out of the respect Our Architect has convinced Us your lineage deserves."

Turmoil covered her anxiety and disbelief, making forming any definite intentions impossible.

Cuius Aureus merely said, "You needn't understand Our will to exact it."

True enough. She'd never understood Cole, ever the unlikely Halliwell savior. She'd always been stuck asking why. Because his destiny was linked to theirs, as she liked to believe? Or was it because the feelings he could only remember having for Aunt Phoebe? Feelings, numbed as he was by the Void, he could never have for Mel.

Steadily, she breathed in pure power. For a moment, her eyes flashed Cuius Aureus's gold. That situation would be remedied, or she wasn't a Halliwell witch.

Again, Cuius Aureus let out her treasure-chest laughter. "You have overestimated yourself again, Architect. Your witch is discontented. She longs for sole possession, and because she has passion where you have mere embers she may prove the stronger."

An obviously a ploy for Mel's loyalty, nonetheless empowering.

With three loud clanks of Cuius Aureus' scepter, the throne room filled with bowing courtiers in robes of red, green, blue, purple, and black, indicating some kind of class hierarchy.

"Tell your guests who you are, Means."

Slowly, Mel pivoted to face the crowd. Time to join the cult.

She took a deep breath and put back her hood. No one stirred. "I am Prudence Melinda Halliwell." Murmurs began. "Daughter of Leo Wyatt, once an Elder, and Piper Halliwell, a Charmed One. Sister to the Twice-Blessed Heir of Excalibur." Mel now had to raise her voice to finish, "And the Means of your resurgence."

The courtiers erupted into cheers. The golden smoke circled her again, flashed in her eyes. Without the potion, she might've lost herself in their veneration. As it was, she certainly rose to the pretense. The air around her rippled with power, the way it did around Cole.

"Claim your prize, Means," Cuius Aureus proclaimed.

In an instant, she was by his side in a haze of gold. A fog curled around Cole, producing a silver robe like hers. An altar and a gold-robbed woman whose face was lost in the depths of her hood appeared between them.

He lowered his head, his lips brushing against her ear as he murmured, "This is your reward, Friday." Neither forfeit nor triumph there. None of his rewards had ever come free, and he knew he'd taught her that lesson well.

Mouth gone dry, she breathed back, "And the price?"

Cole held out his palm for Mel place her own on top of. She frantically tried to open their connection, but his mind was as steely sharp as an athame. His words sliced through her just as readily.

"Your hand in marriage."


	17. A Man Apart 4

**Recalled to Life**

**A Man Apart**

**2025**

"Still, the Doctor walked among the terrors with a steady head. No man better known than he, in Paris at that day; no man in a stranger situation. Silent, humane, indispensable in hospital and prison, using his art equally among assassins and victims, he was a man apart. In the exercise of his skill, the appearance and the story of the Bastille Captive removed him from all other men. He was not suspected or brought in question, any more than if he had indeed been recalled to life some eighteen years before, or were a Spirit moving among mortals."

Book III; Chapter IV of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

—The Napalm Bride—

Her hand in marriage.

Mel repeated the words in her mind tentatively but with little understanding, though the sound of them built to a crescendo. She stared at Cole, dumbstruck, the same way she would stare at the hilt of a knife buried in her chest. Stunned, at first, bemused. Then with ashen horror as the realization dawned on her that it wasn't just her blood seeping out of the wound, it was her future.

There was nothing on Cole's stone cold face or in his ice blue eyes but flat certainty. He knew she would let her emotions be cooled by his numbness. He knew she'd take his other hand, dig her nails into skin, and do exactly what she was told.

But when the faceless priestess began the ceremony in whatever language she was intoning, Cole's gaze slanted toward the floor.

Like steel crossing steel, something sparked inside Mel. Fueled by a perverse combination of fury and satisfaction, the spark caught and burned through her, filling her mouth with the delicious, metallic taste of gold. Heat from within exuded from her pores. She gripped Cole's hands hard. His skin couldn't burn but she wanted him to feel her intention, her passion, and her power.

She wanted them all to feel it. The whole room. The gasping spectators, Taelos, Elivetris, Cuius Aureus herself. Cole once said that the only thing that counted in demonic alliances was power and threat, and that's exactly what she would bring to the spectacle. Halliwell magic was what this was all about. Let them see it. Let Cole see that she knew none of this was for her. He'd married into this family – into this power – before. He knew exactly how much he was getting as dowry.

But not for one second was Prudence Melinda Halliwell going to let him or the rest of them think her power was under anyone's control but her own. She burned hot and bright. The napalm bride. Eighteen and angry, and so sick and so tired of limiting who she was for the sake of discretion. She burned until it hurt, until she thought she'd burst.

The priestess laid one hand over Cole's hooded head and one over Mel's. A shiver went through her, dimming her power but leaving her with the core of its strength. She felt protected, as if she were holding the Book of Shadows as a shield against her heart.

Cole looked at her again, and Mel saw – just for the briefest of moments – his eyes glisten, that ice begin to melt. It wasn't there when she blinked, but she held on to the ephemeral feeling of tenderness toward him like she was gripping a bruise.

Seemingly in lieu of either of them saying "I do," the priestess said, "Geweordan." A close-circuit jolt coursed through them, pronouncing them void and wife. Architect and Means.

Cuius Aureus clanked her scepter. In a flash, the priestess was gone, replaced by six chests overflowing with gold and jewels. Cole let go of one of Mel's hands and the turned to face the applauding crowd. Their cloaks darkened from silver to deep purple.

"Blessed be," the god-queen decreed archly.

Cuius Aureus' expression of approval abruptly changed to astonishment and then to deep anger twenty seconds before her palace's domed ceiling shattered over her court.

Forced off balance, Mel threw up her hands as she dropped to her knees. She pushed against the weight of Cole's body against her back as glass rained down on all sides, impaling demons not powerful or quick enough to deflect. Half-sitting together, Mel and Cole looked through the jagged glass frozen above their heads to see an impossibly large dragon's claw curled in the opening.

A scream ripped through Mel's ear drums. She pressed herself into Cole as he used his arms and chest to muffle Cuius Aureus' excruciating call to arms. Multicolored blasts of power, fueled by gold, rocketed skyward. The dragon's rumbling roar blended with Cuius Aureus' shrill shrieking.

When the roaring ceased, Mel managed to raise her chin. A gust of wind pulled her hair toward the ceiling. The dragon's jaws were open so wide she could count the dulled points of its yellowed teeth. The cavern of its throat sparked with a bright blue flame.

What kind of dragon would it be if it didn't breathe fire? Mel thought woozily as she gritted her teeth and clung to Cole, furiously cursing whatever was keeping him – or the other demons, for that matter – from shimmering. Desperate, Mel tried to call up the golden power that had burned so brightly within her just minutes before, but the shrieking wrecked her concentration.

Then the pitch dropped to a buzz. The orange-red flames that filled the palace pushed right through her, harmless as smoke.

As demons withered or raged around them, she and Cole drew back slowly, eyes locked on each other. Cole slid the hand resting on her collarbone up to cup her chin. He stroked her ear, showing her the trickle of blood running down his palm.

Mel shrugged. Nothing hurt much in the Void.

"We don't have much time," Cole said, pulling her to her feet.

So all this chaos was just another part of another of his plans. "How is it that you can have definite intentions?"

To her surprise, he answered gravely. "Because everything I think and everything I do amounts to nothing more than a vacuum. That's why I've always needed you."

Mel's eyes fluttered shut, and when she opened them they were back in the forest.

The battle at the palace was a distant rumble. She was more interested in the weight of Cole's thumbs against the back of her hands. There was no more emotion there than pressure, but the gesture itself was meant to be encouraging. Something more than obligation or sarcasm, at last.

She detached herself calmly. "Guess that's all the apology I'm going to get for being manipulated into a marriage of convenience." Mel folded her arms over the lead weight in her stomach. "A dark marriage no less."

"Not dark," Cole amended, unperturbed by the mass of brown-cloaked figures emerging from the woods around them. "Good witches can't marry into evil without it changing the nature of their magic."

"You'd know," Mel returned, preoccupied by the cloaks. One had moved to the center to stand directly between her and Cole and produced a bottle Mel instantly recognized. "That's the 'mostly-dead' draught I gave you three years ago."

"It was for the revolutionaries, so they could speak freely. You supplied the potion, but the Architect had nothing to do with it," Cole cautioned before fading out of sight.

The cloaked figure, who Mel now thought might have been the one who presented the Merlin figurine to Cuius Aureus, took a small taste of the potion, capped it, and then gently crumpled to the ground. Her body remained still, but her spirit stood up and pulled back her hood.

Sunlight poured through the fog and glinted in the young woman's dark, kohl-lined eyes. The presence of good magic was unmistakable – not the wispy, cloying kind, but the kickass version the Charmed Ones made famous.

She stepped forward and stuck out her hand. "Mel Halliwell."

The other woman clasped it. "Kiran of Rajasthan. I am eminently pleased to make your acquaintance," she said, her accent making Mel wonder if the Realm boasted a colonial-era British boarding school. "I was told meeting you would be impossible, but I found that unacceptable. I have long wanted to thank the good witch who has made our resistance possible all these years."

Mel held in a sigh. More praise she'd love to take credit for. "Any witch can make a potion."

Kiran smiled bitterly. "Magic in the Realm is heavily monitored and taxed. Witches caught brewing unlicensed potions are stripped of their powers so that they may be subject to the death penalty. In the Realm, only humans burn."

"Ah." What else could be expected under Phoenix witch rule?

"I know there is much you will only know about our world in time, but the Prophetess assures us that your subterfuge will be the key to our revolution. The False Idol's Spider belongs to good magic now, though he does not know it. We thank you for your sacrifice. It cannot be easy to be attached to such a man."

"No, it isn't easy," Mel replied truthfully, though her mind was on the Prophetess. She had to be the one who performed the ceremony. A powerfully good practitioner shedding light on a dark ceremony right under the god-queen's supposedly omniscient nose. Which reminded Mel. "Kiran, that was you earlier, wasn't it?"

"I'd hoped you recognized me," she responded, sounding pleased. "I serve at the Palace with many other revolutionary witches. The False Idol has no use for humans."

"But how are so good at masking your intentions?"

"Cloaking my intentions, you might say," Kiran answered, reaching back to tug on her hood. "The cloaks are meant as a weapon against us, as they mark our caste. However, we have woven our own cloth, infused by your magic, and fashioned them into cloaks in the truest sense of the word. Another thanks we owe to you. You have saved our lives countless times, though you might not have known it."

Now that sounded like credit she could take. Mel made a note to preen about it later. "You're more than welcome. I'm really…" Glad? Relieved? "I'm really grateful that everything I've done has been to help you." Freedom from tyranny was the kind of greater good even the Charmed Ones would justify.

A long, jarring roar sounded, and Mel turned to see the dragon plunge to its death. She spun back around to face Kiran.

She calmly clasped her palms together. "Druthwyene, the oldest dragon of the Realm. She gave her final decade to the revolution. The nobles are only truly vulnerable in the presence of the False Idol. She takes far more of them than she returns, and yet they never notice. Druthwyene has undoubtedly vanquished many. But we will mourn our loss before celebrating her victory."

Mel mimicked Kiran's hand gesture.

Kiran placed a hand on Mel's shoulder, a sad smile now on her lips. "Though we must speak like this again for quite some time, I am infinitely indebted to you for your sacrifice today and all the ones to come. Thank you, sister."

With that rather ominous prediction, Kiran closed her eyes and dissolved back into her own body.

Light and movement caught Mel's attention. She turned to find the gold-cloaked Prophetess standing next to Cole.

Before she could look beyond her hood, the Prophetess slipped a hand behind Mel's neck and pulled her in for a kiss on the forehead. A ghost of the peace that she felt during the ceremony momentarily lightened her heart, before a heavy tenderness seeped into her bones. Just like Kiran's thanks, the Prophetess' kiss felt like an apology.

Or even a betrayal.

Fear rose up inside her. The insurmountable weight of her future – all the sacrifices to come.

As quickly as she came, the Prophetess faded away in a halo of golden shimmers.

Shakily, Mel put her hands on her hips and dropped her head. Her bed, where she could collapse under the day's emotional traumas, suddenly seemed an exhausting distance away. Still, she pushed the ache for home out of her mind and tried to sound game. "What do you got for me next?"

Her neck was tense when Cole came behind her to rearrange her hood. "Answers," he said.

By shimmer, they moved to a large room decorated in gold. The pain in her ears returned when they shifted out of the Void.

"Sit," Cole instructed before disappearing into a side room.

Mel dropped her weight on top of one of the chests Cuius Aureus gave them as a wedding gift. "This isn't a trick, is it? Like I only get to ask three questions or something?"

Returning with a white handkerchief and an open bottle of clear liquid, he replied, "No questions. I'm going to tell you a story in as much detail as you need to know and you're going to listen." He straddled the other end of the chest and put the wet cloth to her ear, underneath her hood.

"Ow," Mel said as a way to voice her annoyance at his no-questions policy. He dabbed at the inside of her ear and the alcohol dripped onto her shoulder. Great. She was going to smell like a hobo when she had to explain to her parents where she'd been. "This would be easier if I lost the cloak. It's not like she's in the room with us."

"That ringing in your ears isn't your eardrums. She's furiously reading everyone in the Realm. Keep the hood on and she'll only hear what she's supposed to hear."

"Which is?"

"Our wedding night."

Mel's heart hit against her chest with a thud. "She's not, like, expecting the fruits of our union in nine months, is she?"

"Marriage of convenience only, Friday. You'll emerge with your virtue intact. I'm alive enough to have a healthy fear of your relatives." Cole tilted her head this way and that to see if he'd gotten all the blood, blowing gently into her ears as he did. She couldn't suppress a tingling shudder when he nudged her chin close to his mouth. "So don't get your hopes up."

Sourly, she replied, "Jerking me around like that just proves how bitter you are. 'Alive enough' is still partly dead, and you've lost the good parts." Mel pulled his fingers down to the jump of her pulse as she leaned forward to claim a kiss.


	18. A Man Apart 5

**Recalled to Life**

**A Man Apart**

**2025**

"Still, the Doctor walked among the terrors with a steady head. No man better known than he, in Paris at that day; no man in a stranger situation. Silent, humane, indispensable in hospital and prison, using his art equally among assassins and victims, he was a man apart. In the exercise of his skill, the appearance and the story of the Bastille Captive removed him from all other men. He was not suspected or brought in question, any more than if he had indeed been recalled to life some eighteen years before, or were a Spirit moving among mortals."

Book III; Chapter IV of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

—Last Pure Warren Witch—

Mel was proud of herself when she pulled back from the one-sided kiss, dignity intact. "I can feel it, even if you can't. Husband."

Cole's hand ticked briefly around her throat, while the other came up to pat her cheek fondly if sharply. "I won't blame you for being cruel."

Mel flashed her teeth. "Nobody likes a hypocrite."

He saluted her with the bottle he picked up from the floor then took a long, burning drink.

Unimpressed, Mel said, "That can't actually do anything for you."

"No," he agreed, wiping his mouth. "Old habits die hard and all that. I was a suicidal alcoholic for months after your Aunt Phoebe divorced me. I also stalked her psychotically. I loved her to the point of madness."

"Gee, every girl's dream. Is this the story? Because you can fast forward."

The Great Tragedy of Belthazar had become a sleepover legend between the Halliwell cousins, and Pheona told the story with all the romantic elegance of Shakespearian prose.

Mel was far more succinct: "You became immortal, the Avatars approached you, you used their magic to make an alternative reality where you were married, Aunt Paige sneezed her way into the world, got my mom to save Aunt Phoebe – who hated you even then – and the Power of Three vanquished you."

"Only the good parts," Cole conceded.

"Correct. Then what?"

He sunk down to the floor so he was sitting with his back against the chest, arms balanced on his knees. "The cold edge of oblivion, I suppose. It was a relief. I had been fighting against my own nature for so long – throwing myself into passion after passion – numbness was a gift. More than I deserve."

Mel had to tear her eyes from his profile. She wasn't going to find any sign of emotion. Watching for it was just masochism.

Cole broke his own silence with a shrug. "I would've gladly faded away, but I owed a debt to a family in crisis."

"That's a once a week state of affairs."

"This was a matter of destiny. Seven is a powerful number. That's how many more lives the Charmed Ones were meant to bring into an ideal world. You know destiny isn't written out on paper. It's negotiated. That's why prophets work in an oral medium. Destiny isn't anything like premonition; premonition is emotional. Destiny is a chessboard."

"I really loathe that analogy."

"If either of us is a pawn, rest assured it's me."

Mel scoffed. "Stop telling me what I want to hear."

"I'm trying to tell you the truth you claim to want. So listen." He waited until she closed her mouth and crossed her arms before he continued. "For two years, I tried to give in to nothingness only to become more and more corporal, because I couldn't stop myself from watching her. All of them. They were more powerful than ever, but so reckless. So unhappy. The Elders didn't give a damn. They only saw the vanquishes. They were more than willing to give up on the Ennead to preserve the Heir."

"'The Ennead' – that's us, the nine of us. A Seer stopped us last year, we were all walking around this fair for Juni's tenth birthday, and she called us the Ennead. The Power of Three times Three. 'Witches born from Light and Love.' She went on and on about how strong their whitelighter and cupid blood made them. She didn't even look at me. Really pissed me off."

"You're the last pure Warren witch."

"Whoopee. Penny got the Warren powers."

"She didn't choose that. None of them chose what they are. But you can. Freewill is the most powerful thing in the universe, and humans are the ones who inherited its full effect."

Mel glared at him. "You don't know what you're talking about. I was this close to giving up my soul to 'the False Idol' today. That was out of my control. If it hadn't been for that potion – "

"Elivetris made that potion. Why would she want to make you less susceptible to her god-queen's power? If it hadn't been for that potion, Cuius Aureus would have realized just how easily you can resist her power, and she would have killed you on the spot out of fear."

Understanding dawned on Mel. "It's not their souls she takes from witches, it's their humanity. Their freewill." She was starting to get excited about the concept. "Humans can do evil things without becoming evil. Witches can't even do that. Demons and angels are stuck. Whitelighters, cupids – the more magical someone is, the more black or white they're forced to be. But no one's ever been able to force me to see it that way. I see the gray, like a human should." A fierce grin lit up her face as, for the first time in her life, she was able to say, "I'm special," and actually believe it.

"That's your birthright as the last pure Warren witch. I never could have forced you to help me. I wouldn't be here right now if you hadn't chosen me," Cole said.

"You don't say no to imaginary friends with cool powers." Mel knocked her knee against his shoulder. "Anyway, you were telling a story."

"Where was I?"

"Creeping on my aunt two years after she vanquished your crazy ass."

He elbowed her leg, but went on, "It was a difficult time for her. She was dealing with the aftereffects of her empathy power, going through boyfriend after boyfriend, while watching the end of your parents' marriage."

"Excuse me?"

"Believe it or not, Piper and Leo weren't even together when they had Chris. The Elders were always against them, because Leo used to be destined to make their order more powerful than ever. The Elders knew Leo would never chose them over Piper, not with his memory intact. So they gave him amnesia and sent him to Texas. If he found his way back to her, he could stay with his family."

"That's…really stupid," Mel opined.

"Elders specialize in tests of character. They're more like the gods of old than they'd ever admit."

"Apparently. But obviously Dad found his way back to Mom. Otherwise," she gestured at herself.

"Exactly. Months before, an Angel of Destiny approached me. She saw what the Elders didn't: The Charmed Ones could continue sacrificing personal happiness to vanquish demons until the day of their untimely deaths, but it would never be enough. Only the Ennead would ensure their legacy. We made a deal. The power to travel freely across any plane of existence in exchange for my services. I arranged for one demon to become human in order to remind Phoebe of the redemptive powers of love – "

Mel pretended to gag on cheese for a moment.

Cole talked right over her. "And another to attack Piper to send her into the Void with me. I had a nice, civilized chat, while she cursed my continued existence. Eventually, Leo sensed her death and returned to save her. Two years to the day later, there you were. Six more to follow."

"That's the debt my family owes you? Marital counseling? Unbelievable. Also, the fact that I am now married to the man who takes credit for my conception is kind of disturbing."

"Only kind of?" he said, getting to feet to put some distance between them.

"My father died in World War II and had me in 2007. I can't be that squeamish." She leaned forward. "But you haven't told me the end of the story yet. There's still the part about King Arthur being my brother and a bunch of revolutionaries thinking I'm their sacrifice, while their demon overlords are setting me up as their Supreme Empress. What's your Angel of Destiny-Prophetess' take on that?"

Cole stood with his back to her. "There's an ideal world out there where the entire nature of good and evil magic is fundamentally altered to include freewill. Not many paths lead that way, but they exist. Some are more appealing than others."

"How so?"

He meant his answer to be blunt. "Fewer people you love have to die."

When she sprang to her feet, the vodka bottle tipped over and cracked. "No one in my family is dying. I don't care what the cause is. We'll find another way. You will find me another way."

"As it stands, the best case scenario is that only Wyatt has to die."

"Unacceptable."

Cole turned to fix her with an level stare. "Or you could die for him."

"No one dies," she enunciated.

He didn't respond for a moment. Then he said, "People die. Halliwells die. Ask Piper. She's lost a mother, a grandmother, and a sister."

"So, what, if she loses a son or daughter or a niece or nephew that's okay because she might as well be used to it? That's not how it works. I'm the Means. I decide – I chose. It doesn't matter how far I have to bend or what I have to compromise. Freewill is going to win out, and my family is going to be there to see it. Every single one of them." Mel, eyes burning, pointed right at Cole. "You make sure of it. You owe me at least that much."

"You're not wrong, Friday," he said, and even that sounded like an apology.

"I want to go home."

Cole glanced at the door. "I can't leave. The illusion will break."

"So call Sydney. I know he shimmers around and spies for you when you're otherwise occupied."

He conceded the point with a wave of his hand. Sydney appeared at her feet. Mel picked up her cat and hugged him to her like she was twelve years old. "From now on, things are different. We're partners."

Though she did not sound convincing even to her own ears, Cole inclined his head in agreement.

"When I think of something that will help Kiran, I'll come to you."

It was the best exit line she could manage.


	19. A Man Apart 6

**Recalled to Life**

**A Man Apart**

**2025**

"Still, the Doctor walked among the terrors with a steady head. No man better known than he, in Paris at that day; no man in a stranger situation. Silent, humane, indispensable in hospital and prison, using his art equally among assassins and victims, he was a man apart. In the exercise of his skill, the appearance and the story of the Bastille Captive removed him from all other men. He was not suspected or brought in question, any more than if he had indeed been recalled to life some eighteen years before, or were a Spirit moving among mortals."

Book III; Chapter IV of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

—A Family of Martyrs—

Mel lingered long enough to make sure Cole knew she was serious before giving Sydney a squeeze.

She found herself first in the Void and then in her driveway. The freedom of travel she'd always longed for. Easy as asking for it.

Why hadn't she asked before? She knew the answer to that. Even while longing for more power, she'd been made afraid of the consequences. Not any more. Freewill gave her all the control she could ask for.

The cool night air hit her with a shudder. It was clearly late, the time flux between the human world and the Realm was as unpredictable as she'd thought. The lack of police cars parked on the street reassured her that it was the same night, at least.

Every room in the Halliwell Manor was lit up, and the warm glow was inviting. Still, she hesitated on her own front steps. They could all be gathered behind that door, the Charmed Ones and the Ennead. Each one more likely than the next to someday give their lives for a world one Angel of Destiny had taken upon herself to judge the most ideal.

It was quiet when she eventually came inside, except for the low murmur of the television. Her dad was sitting on the couch, one ankle on his knee and his arm outstretched like he was waiting for her to come join him for a father-daughter movie night.

On the screen was a black and white Howard Hawks' film. Not his favorite, that distinction was reserved for The Big Sleep, both because of his generational admiration for Humphrey Bogart and the fact that it was the first movie he'd seen after earning his Whitelighter wings. He had a love-hate relationship with Scarface, the pre-Code Al Capone thriller, due to the fact that he was somewhat scarred after seeing it with his older cousins at the tender age of eight. Wyatt and Chris loved it growing up, though. Mom allowed it because the violence seemed cute in comparison. Mom's favorite Hawks film was Bringing Up Baby – Grant and Hepburn and a leopard with a love for pop music.

But Dad wasn't watching any of those movies. He was watching Mel's own favorite, a fast-paced, fast-talking, journalistic take on the battle of the sexes. Cary Grant as Walter Burns, ever the charmer – "He comes by naturally, his grandfather was a snake," is one of her favorite lines. Burns' sharp-tongued equal is Rosalind Russell's sassy Hildy Johnson.

His Girl Friday. How many times had she watched this movie? Enough times for it to earn her a nickname that, as she got older, just seemed to mock her.

She mouths the lines along with the actors, "'We've been in worse jams than this, haven't we, Hildy?' 'Nope.'" An appropriate parallel.

Dad half-cocked his head. "I can start it over, if you want." It was his way of getting her to sit down so he could initiate conversation. This was a well-intentioned trap.

Sydney hopped up on the back of the couch, watching her expectantly.

"I'm really tired," she declined. "Where's the family?"

"Gone home. It's after ten."

Mel wondered how many times Dad had watched the film while he was lying in wait, but felt too guilty to ask. "Why are all the lights on?"

"You missed an important family spell. They gathered the spirits of all the Halliwell matriarchs. Juni took it on himself to impress Melinda Warren with the magic of electricity." Dad fixed Mel with his best understanding-though-admonishing look. "She was disappointed not to see you, kiddo."

Her discomfort expressed itself as a shrug.

Dad's voice was sharper when he said, "You had us worried."

She cringed. "Is Mom pissed?"

"That's what worry does to her."

"I know. Do you think she'll listen to me?"

There was tenderness tinged with pity in his voice when he said, "Melinda, she's been waiting to listen to you your whole life."

That was almost too much to bare, and she nearly chickened out. Her fingers shook against the banister as she climbed the stairs. She didn't even know what she wanted to say. Cole's words were guiding her. Ask Piper, he'd said. Mel's mother knew firsthand that Halliwells could die.

"We're ghosts," she heard flippantly from behind the half-open attic door. "We'd know if anything…permanent had happened to your little trouble maker."

It'd been years since Mel had last heard herself called that, but she recognized Grams' voice well before visual confirmation. The brightly-lit outlines of Great-Grams and Nana hovered behind Mel's mom, who was sitting at a low table with her head in her hands. Laid out before her was all the items necessary for scrying.

"It's just not fair," Mom moaned. "Prue and Phoebe were the rebels. Why am I suffering their karma?"

Grams snorted. "'Fair.'"

"Sweetie, your daughter isn't rebelling out of boredom the way your sisters did," Mel's far too young-looking grandmother said. "She's like you were. She doesn't feel like she fits in."

Mom not fit in? Yeah, right. She was the Halliwell glue. Or like the personification of the Manor or something.

"I baked," Mom returned. "I didn't throw myself into the Underworld to hunt demons I wasn't ready for."

"Oh, pish-posh. I seem to recall a certain ill-advised hunting spree after Prue passed," Grams said. "You didn't think you were prepared for your new role, so you were reckless with your life."

"I missed my big sister. I still do," Mom complained, picking up the scrying crystal.

Grams and Nana exchanged a look over Mom's head. Grams said, "It's not the right time to see her yet."

"It's been twenty-four years!" Mom cried, but the crystal interrupted her when it thudded against the map. "Prudence Melinda," she growled, getting to her feet.

Mel pushed open the door before her mom could cross the attic and find her spying. "I'm here."

Mom channeled her anger into a shake that turned into a hug. "Where were you?"

"Like you said. I captured a demon, and I had him take me to the Underworld." Mel was looking over her mom's shoulder at Nana and Grams when she said this.

Grams shook her head disapprovingly, while Nana blew her a sad kiss. However much they knew, they kept it to themselves and slid back into the afterworld.

Pulling back so she could shake her again, Mom said, "We have a rule in this house. No proactive demon hunting – "

"Until I graduate high school. I know. But nothing happened." Biggest lie yet.

"Is that blood?" Mom tugged at her collar. She wrinkled her nose. "And vodka?"

"Okay, so I had a little accident. But nothing happened," she repeated.

"Maybe not this time! No one knew where you were. You could've been stuck down there, and that's the best of the worse case scenarios."

Pride stung, Mel jerked away. "Stop underestimating me. I can take care of myself."

And even if she couldn't, Cole always kept one eye on his investment. Mel was far safer than any of her brothers or cousins, though her mom probably wouldn't be too reassured by the identity of her protector. No, her partner. The Architect pawn. He had the power to save or destroy the Halliwell family, and Mel herself had given him the right by marrying him.

Mom had taken a deep breath to calm herself. "I know it feels like it, honey, but being eighteen doesn't make you an adult. You're my child. You live under my roof and my rules."

"Look, Mom – " Mel searched for words to convey the utter exhaustiveness of her long-ass day, but couldn't find the energy. So she gave up. "I'm sorry I went off like that. Ground me if you see fit, whatever. I'm planning on staying in bed until college anyway."

Shuffling to her room, Mel didn't bother turning on her light. She shucked her shoes and slumped onto her mattress.

A few seconds later, Mom was a shadow in her doorframe. "I'm not finished, Melinda."

Sighing, Mel rolled onto her other side. "Can we save the lecture for the morning?"

"No. I can see you're hurting now. By tomorrow, your defenses will be back up, and I won't be able to get through to you." The mattress dipped when Mom sat down. "All it takes is one mistake. One instance of bad timing. It might not seem like it with your father and all your ancestors running around, but death is irreversible. It's not the end of you, but it is the end of your life. Everything you're planning for right now – college and law school and a fabulous career. And finding a man who loves you, who wants to grow old with you. The family you're going to have with him some day – Don't make it easier for Evil to take that from you."

Her pillow was already wet when Mel turned on her stomach to press her face into it. It was that exact future Cole had taken today when she'd put her hands in his. He was a man no longer capable of emotion, but she was a girl who'd never learned to love anybody else. That alone was enough to condemn her to a life far, far removed from anything her mom considered ideal.

Mel was sobbing soundlessly now, and her Mom was rubbing her back. "Oh, sweetie, today was a hard, hard day. Let it out. Let it out, sweetie. I'm here for you. Everything's going to be okay."

Through the snot that had collected in her nose and throat, Mel stopped hiccupping long enough to say, "The alternative is much more likely."

"If that's what you're afraid of, then why do you go looking for trouble?"

"It's not trouble I'm afraid of. It's not even evil. It's – " She tightened her grip on her pillow, bracing herself. "It's good I'm afraid of. Everyone in this family is so damn good. You should have seen them today, how willing they were to sacrifice themselves. It was sick. We're sick. We're a family of martyrs. And I'm sorry if feeling like this makes me…I don't know what."

Mom's soothing touch hadn't skipped a beat. "Melinda, it doesn't make you anything but human. Let tell you something, I've felt just like you do so many times. I've made sacrifices for my sisters without thinking, but whenever one of them made one for me – " Mom's voice broke. "We are, Melinda. We're a family of martyrs. Look at me."

She meant that figuratively, but Mel rolled to her side anyway. Mom lay down and reached out to stroke Mel's hair.

"I'm fifty-one years old. I get to be old. And I'm still in love with a husband the whole world conspired against me having. I have three healthy, privileged children, two successful businesses. My sisters and their husbands and their children are happy. I'm content, and I have been for a long time. But everything I have is because your Aunt Prue died that day, instead of me. For me." Mom was crying with Mel now, her voice raw. "I blamed your dad, at first, because I thought he'd chosen me to save first because I was his wife. But, later, Grams told us Prue had made the choice. Some cosmic deal…Grams only told us because she thought it would make Prue's death easier if it 'meant something.' I think it helped Phoebe. I hate it. I hate knowing she sacrificed herself for me. The alternative is so, so much worse, and I thank her everyday for everything I have. But none of that stops me from being angry."

Moving closer to her mom, Mel had never felt more reassured, though it was only because she'd at last had proof that sainted Piper Halliwell's morality was less arrow-straight then Mel had always feared.

"Mom, I can't promise that you won't ever be angry with my choices. I mean, obviously. But…I want you to know that I don't believe in the greater good anymore. It's just another way of saying 'the lesser of two evils' that makes it sound like a win for the good guys. Lesser evils are gonna happen, but I hate that it's become the goal. From now on, I'm only fighting for the good without the sacrifice. People should be able to enjoy their happy endings."

"You're not wrong, sweetie," Mom said, kissing the top of Mel's head. "And I want you to remind your brothers and cousins of that."

"Oh, I will," Mel promised, scooting in closer and closing her eyes. She didn't want to fall asleep alone, not tonight. "Goodnight, Mom."

"Sweet dreams, sweetheart." Mom wrapped her arms tight around Mel. "You've earned them."


End file.
